Intro to Fire – The Power and Purpose of a Common Believer (Excerpt from “Fire Breathing Christians”)

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

 

This has been a long time in the making, but the day has finally come…

Posted here is the introduction from Fire Breathing Christians – The Common Believer’s Call to Reformation, Revival, and Revolution. The book will be released in late October. In the days leading up to launch, I will be posting excerpts from many of its 21 chapters so that you might get a feel for the material without having to go to the trouble or expense of purchasing a copy. Of course, if you like what you see, I fully expect you to buy at least three copies.

In all seriousness, if, after reading through the Intro to Fire (and the excerpts to follow), you find Fire Breathing Christians to be your cup o’ tea, I hope and pray that you will use the great power that you have to fan this flame into something God glorifying and culture impacting by simply sharing the message of this book with like-minded folks.  The good news is that the “God glorifying” part of that equation is, in a real sense, already in the bag. He has taken care of that. The “culture impacting” part is where you come in. To that end, your prayers are coveted and your spreading the word of Fire Breathing Christians is more appreciated (and more important) than you may ever know.

Thank you for taking the time to pause, read, pray and ponder. Without further delay…

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Copyright © 2010 Scott Alan Buss - All rights reserved.

 

INTRO TO FIRE

THE POWER AND PURPOSE OF A COMMON BELIEVER

 

“FIRE…God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not of the philosophers and savants. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.”

Blaise Pascal

I can remember holding my wife’s hand when she died. Even now I can vividly recall the moment before and the moment after, but it was the difference between the two that struck me with a force I’d not anticipated. It was in that instant following her ascent to paradise that I realized fully for the first time the fact of death—the permanent passing of a good and beautiful thing from this flawed and fallen world. The moment before, Kristi was there. Her spirit and mind were with me. The potential for every good and miraculous thing that might be realized through them was there with me. Then, in a breath, they were gone.

From a secular perspective, this was pure tragedy. Twenty-five-year-olds aren’t supposed to be diagnosed with cancer and twenty-nine-year-olds aren’t supposed to die. From my own weak and flawed perspective, this was a time of great loss and pain—the quintessential example of “a time to mourn.” From God’s perspective, this was a demonstration of matchless love and flawless timing, all according to the perfect plan He had ordained since before the dawn of creation.

It was in the midst of these competing claims to truth that I was blessed with clarity. The God who had so lovingly sustained and encouraged me through a four-year saga of hope and sorrow had then graciously provided the precious prize of certainty. Just as I’d discovered a deeper meaning of death, so too I had been presented with the gift of peace through a divinely inspired clarity. For the first time, I came to personally realize that God’s plan was not merely perfect in a broad, general sense, but it was flawless perfection for each and every one of us on an individual level—even for me.

It was a simple concept, really, yet one of impossible weight, all of which seemed to relentlessly press on my mind. I was simultaneously numb from the profound turn that life had just taken with Kristi’s passing and awestruck at what I was beginning to see clearly for the first time. It was at once a wonderful and frightening experience; one that left me feeling both desperately small and boundlessly hopeful. As I struggled with these apparent contradictions, I developed into a confused American thirty-something-year-old Christian man. And that was a good thing.

In the following weeks and months, I prayed, studied and sought the thoughts of others who had been exposed to this convicting and invigorating clarity. This search led me to many wonderful and inspirational stories, including that of a man named Blaise Pascal.

God-given Fire

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Hebrews 12:28–29

Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623–August 19, 1662) was a child prodigy who became a prominent mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. By the age of nineteen, he invented what many consider to be the first computer (it was a calculating device that he crafted to help his father, who was a tax collector). What I found most intriguing about his biography was its “Night of Fire” episode.

In the late 1640s, Pascal came into contact and subsequently wrestled with Jansenism, a branch of Catholicism that emphasized the fall of man through sin and the necessity of divine grace. Pascal struggled with and contemplated this philosophy well into the 1650s; though during that time, he embraced neither its views nor the God claimed as their author.

Then, on November 23, 1654, not long after a brush with death at the Neuilly-sur-Seine Bridge, he was overwhelmed by an intense vision. Between the hours of 10:30 and 12:30 at night, Blaise Pascal experienced what has come to be known as his “Night of Fire.” He recorded the experience immediately in a note, which began: “Fire. God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and savants…” and concluded by quoting Psalm 119:16: “I will not forget thy word. Amen.” He then sewed the written note into his coat and always transferred it when he changed clothes. The presence of the note was discovered accidentally by a servant after Pascal’s death…that is, if you believe in accidents.

I no longer believe in accidents, and that’s the point. Well, one of them, anyway.

After reading Pascal’s story for the first time, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed and, I must admit, even a bit suspicious. The sheer power of it all was quite impressive, no doubt, but almost too fantastic to be true. Yet there it was, and as I pondered this dramatic episode further, my mind was propelled from one biblical account to another. The fire of which Pascal so passionately wrote inspired my recollection of John the Baptist’s announcing Jesus’ coming to “baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire” as well as images of Pentecost as recorded in the book of Acts:

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

Acts 2:1–3

These accounts painted the once suspicious Night of Fire in a very different light. They seemed to me to proclaim that Blaise Pascal’s experience, while utterly fantastic and awe-inspiring in so many beautiful ways, was nonetheless quite possible—indeed, in a very real sense likely—in the life of a believer. The more I studied, the more I became convinced that Spirit and fire are not merely possible, they are to be expected. They are to be assumed in the life of a Christian.

Just the thought of such a thing as this is worthy of pause, I think, and pause I did. My frazzled mind grappled at length with what was, for me, a wonderful and intimidating new truth: Christ has come to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. And even better, He doesn’t seem to be selective with this Spirit and fire. He gives them to every believer.

This magnificent power might come over you in an intense vision on a November night, or it may make itself known as you hold the hand of a loved one who is passing from this life and into the next. It may lay its claim upon you while you struggle and cry out from the deepest place of despair or while you happily sit and read under a shade tree on the perfect, sunny day. Whenever or wherever it may have come to you, I cannot know or say, though I can be certain of two things:

Every Christian has been baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Every Christian has been blessed in this manner for a great, God-centered and God-glorifying purpose.

The first aim of Fire Breathing Christians is to identify the God-given fire in every Spirit-filled believer so that they might actively and enthusiastically fan its flame. From one Common Believer to another, my initial goal is to impress upon every Christian man, woman, boy, and girl who may read these words that they have both an amazing power and a unique, individual purpose, regardless of their place, position, title, or role in this fallen world. There is nothing in your past—no failing or flaw—that alters this truth in the least. Every Christian has been called to otherwise impossible heights and equipped to attain them.

So it is that you and I have been brought together today for a great purpose. (And you thought this whole “pick up a book and have a look” thing was quite random, didn’t you?)

While we could hardly have imagined, much less properly planned such a meeting as this, we can now know that it has been both imagined and planned by the same Master who inspired matchless “certitude, feeling joy and peace” in one particular man on the night of November 23, 1654.

The God who claims and empowers great leaders and theologians is no less interested and takes no less joy in any other father, mother, daughter, or son. He seeks to lift them all to the same impossible height. As I am selfishly fond of pointing out, He takes great pleasure in using the weakest vessels to accomplish the most magnificent tasks. And His fire is not solely reserved for child prodigies or prominent philosophers.

This truth serves our purpose very well, as the change that America so desperately needs cannot be imposed from a pulpit. It will not be a product of seminary training. It will not come via decree or proclamation from the high places of man. It will come from the front lines, the grass roots, and the trenches. It is the Christian shopkeeper, landscaper, plumber, and homemaker in the pews who hold the keys to victory. They will make or break our cause.

It is the fire from above burning within these people that can heal a dying culture and restore a once-great nation. But this fire knows only one source and one goal—the one and only true God of biblical Christianity. Insofar as He, and He alone, is our center in all things, it will hold and we will accomplish otherwise impossible tasks.

To this end, every Common Believer has been called to this battle and equipped for victory.

The Common Believer

While this is certainly not a book of high theology, there are going to be some critical terms and concepts that must be defined as we go along.  To that end, Fire Breathing Christians will make regular reference to the Common Believer. With this term, I aim simply to address every genuine Christian convert and adherent to biblical truth, regardless of position, place, role or title.

The commonality expressed in this title is threefold:

1. Common in status as adopted sons and daughters of Christ.
2. Common in submission to Jesus as Savior and Lord.
3. Common in submission to biblical truth as authoritative in all things.

This category covers theologians, fieldworkers, philosophers, housewives, political leaders, policemen, fishermen, fathers, daughters, sons, and students. It includes all biblically defined Christians without any compulsion to exalt one above another or rank them in any order of perceived significance. These are the people that must be equipped so that they might successfully engage the culture.

We simply cannot continue to surrender most battles, cede most battlefields, and then hope to somehow win the war raging about that culture. We cannot wait for a good and godly leader to emerge or for somebody else—anybody else—to “do something.” We cannot wait for God to miraculously do what He has called and equipped us to do. You and I—each and every Common Believer—must take it upon ourselves to engage the enemy on every front. The arts…business…politics…these are the fields of battle that we are called and equipped to conquer.

Fire Breathing Christians is one Common Believer’s attempt to guide his brothers and sisters toward the Word of God so that they might be equipped to win the war we are all called to wage. In this, we will examine many spheres of life and areas of conflict between Christianity and its opposition throughout contemporary American society. We will see where we are, how we got here, and what we must do to restore our nation’s biblical foundation, one individual submission to Christ at a time.

Our preparation will begin with a detailed examination of the culture war as it currently stands on a variety of fronts; a survey of the battlefield, so to speak. As the self-helpers like to say, the first step to a solution is admitting that there is a problem, and when it comes to the state of American culture, we clearly have one of those. Many of them, actually, but each of these problems shares one root cause: Ours is a nation in open rebellion against truth and its author. The God of Christianity is hated here. This is the reality with which we must contend. This is our great challenge.

But we must never forget that within every great challenge lies great opportunity, and never more so than with this conflict in these last days. Our God has placed us in this particular place at this specific time to meet this unique challenge. He has equipped us for combat and called us to victory. These most comforting truths must not be forgotten as we take a first hard look at the field of battle.

Post-Christian America

American Christendom is in a free-falling state of collapse. Having conformed to the world she was commissioned to transform, the church has accommodated, embraced, and exalted an astounding variety of heretical concepts that would have been unimaginable to believers of just a generation past. Homosexual priests have claimed many a pulpit, the biblical definitions of family and gender roles have been largely abandoned, business and politics have come to be regarded as “separate matters,” church discipline is virtually non-existent, and Christ-less education has become the accepted norm. At the root of it all is an open tolerance of the biblical illiteracy that has come to permeate the church and define the average contemporary American Christian life.

As the church has surrendered to the lethargic, lazy spirit of this age, her enemies have advanced on all fronts. From within, liberal progressives win convert after convert through their zealous evangelical efforts. From without, an American culture at war with the faith that brought it into being batters, pounds, and assaults every biblical truth from every conceivable angle in a suicidal quest to remove from sight and memory every vestige of a once-cherished God.

Is this cause for despair? Should biblically submissive American Christians abandon all hope and concede that the culture—and perhaps even the church itself—has been lost to the enemy?

Absolutely not!

However brazenly the church may have spurned her Lord, we may be eternally thankful that in His matchless grace He has chosen not to return the favor. Far from abandoning us, He has called us to His side in these last days so that we might be empowered to stand and fight.

He has long been about the business of preparing us for this day and preparing this day for us. Throughout the age of American decomposition, He has allowed warnings to sound through the words of many good men and women.

Two such men published books in the early nineties, with each approaching the ongoing culture war from a unique perspective. Robert Bork’s The Tempting of America—The Political Seduction of the Law, written in the aftermath of his defeated nomination to the Supreme Court, was a brilliant and sobering account of a national judicial system that had lost its way. His detailed and compelling chronicle of America’s continued flight from her founding constitutional principles served both as a frightening diagnosis and a prophetic warning. Was Judge Bork’s warning heeded?

In the era of Barack Hussein Obama and Sonia Sotomayor, the answer is as obvious as it is unsettling. The “original understanding” of the Constitution so skillfully defined and defended in The Tempting of America continues to find itself openly undermined by the forces of progressive liberalism. In the wake of this ongoing assault on the constitutional foundation of the nation, we find ourselves moving ever closer to a state of overtly anti-Christian judicial tyranny.

In the classic work of apologetics, Christianity in Crisis, Hank Hanegraaff applied the illuminating light of scriptural truth to the church from within, focusing on the burgeoning movement of heretical philosophies that had come to permeate Christendom at every level and on a massive scale. Christians, the book maintained, had come to embrace and emulate a wide variety of cultic systems of thought in some form or fashion, and the cost to the church had been catastrophic. Hanegraaff predicted that if this trend continued, the church would find her already questionable influence further compromised, ultimately to the point of becoming a non-factor in the culture.

To avert this crisis, we must shift from perceiving God as a means to an end to recognizing that He is the end. We must shift from a theology based on temporary perspectives to one based on eternal perspectives.

And while change must come, it clearly will not come easily. Those who are feeding this cancer occupy some of the most powerful platforms within Christianity. They control vast resources and stand to lose multiplied millions of dollars if they are exposed.

The stakes are so high that those who are plunging Christianity into crisis seem willing to do and say virtually anything to silence opposition and rally support.

Was Hanegraaff’s warning heeded? Has Christendom embraced God as its ultimate end (or even as its ultimate beginning), submitting to His will wherever it may lead? Or is He still largely viewed as a tool to be used in the exercise of our will and pursuit of our desires all on our schedule?

Put another way, have you ever heard of Joel Osteen?

In the era of American Christ-less Christianity, the answer is clear and horrifying. The church has been utterly compromised, giving herself over to a Mr. Potato Jesus brand of religion that encourages adherents to add or remove any accessory from their customizable little pseudo-god in pursuit of personal acceptance and corporate relevance. The church has come to openly embrace virtually every counter-Christian concept in some form or fashion. As a result, the term “Christian” itself has lost most of its definitive power. It has become little more than a synonym for “good person.” That is, if you still believe in “good.” The results of this have been predictably devastating to the church, and where the church has been so effectively crippled by her enemies, the culture at large has suffered incalculable loss.

Biblical Christianity finds itself under siege from without and actively undermined from within. A nation once consecrated to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has fallen into a state of complete rebellion.

Terms of Engagement

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis described the path of the Common Believer as follows:

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’

This is a fine initial description of the core truth that will serve as our guide. Christ wants all of you and He wants all of me. You and I are called to fully submit every area of life to Him. Our notions of politics, the arts, education, and economics are all to be subjected completely to His will if we are to have any hope of peace, prosperity, and victory in the culture war that has ravaged the America that God has given us. It is from this perspective that Fire Breathing Christians seeks to empower each and every Common Believer. It is from this launching point that we will examine the spirit of relativism that has consumed the culture and the spirit of compromise that has corrupted the church.

We will see—many times in our adversaries’ own words—crystal clear expressions of rebellion against and contempt for the God of Christianity. We will witness the enemy boldly proclaim, exalt, and advocate opposition to virtually every clearly pronounced truth of Scripture. We will then examine these actions and the motivations behind them in light of biblical truth. In this, we will gain a crucial understanding of not only what the enemies of Christianity are doing, but why they are compelled to do so.

This understanding is vital. After all, if we do not know what our adversaries are doing and why, any attempt to effectively engage them on the cultural battlefield will prove futile. Only when we have this knowledge in hand are we properly equipped to achieve victory. Only then can we finally liberate American culture from the secular forces of relativism and humanism that have come to dominate and enslave her. With our enemies identified, their strategies understood and the battlefield surveyed, we will then fix our minds on the God-given blueprint for victory.

As we consider the many challenges before us and begin down the path towards cultural engagement, we are well served to consciously cling to three essential aspects of the Holy Spirit as evidenced in the life of the obedient Common Believer:

1. A humble spirit—We must never forget that every slave of the enemy is only acting according to their fallen nature. We were once just as they are now. We must always earnestly pray for their regeneration by God’s sovereign hand and treat them accordingly: with love, patience, and respect whenever possible. Our boldness must always be “in the Lord,” and not of ourselves.
2. A servant’s spirit—We must always aspire to actively, consciously submit to the will of God the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us. We must serve Him completely and in all areas of life.
3. A martyr’s spirit—We must be willing to pay any price for the sake of advancing the Kingdom of Christ. Any means any.

While our God has baptized us with Spirit and fire, we must never imagine for a moment that one will ever contradict the other. The passion and power given every Common Believer is essential to success, but we must remain vigilant against our inclination to pervert or distort these treasures for the purpose of self-exaltation or excessive criticism of another.

Through Christ and our complete submission to His will in all things, there is no obstacle, challenge, or opponent that we cannot conquer. Through a process of thoughtful, prayerful preparation followed by obedient execution of His perfect plan for battle, we can finally engage the culture, achieve victory, and restore our fallen nation.

Fire Breathing Christians is aimed at guiding the Common Believer through this process. In doing so, it is my hope that readers will come to realize what may at first seem to be an unexpected benefit from such a book as this: everyday application.

Lest there be any confusion, the aim here is not to promote the everyday application of Fire Breathing Christians. At least not as an end. No, the goal here is to encourage and guide every Common Believer toward everyday study and application of the revealed truth of Holy Scripture. If Fire Breathing Christians is to be rightly applied, the first step in that application will always be to seek, find, and submit to truth as revealed in the Bible. That is where God-given hope and power lie in their undiluted, unmatched, and eternally relevant form. This is where our fire is fed.

While much of what is covered in these pages deals with large scale and lofty sounding bits of high drama and grand strategy, as we pass each milepost along our journey, we will see with great clarity that each problem under consideration and its biblically prescribed solution has direct application to our lives on a very personal level. We will pause at each of these markers to observe and learn how it is that we are to apply these specific scriptural principles to our everyday lives on an individual level, and as we do so we will grow.

When properly understood, this book should challenge and inspire positive change not only at an institutional or organized political level, but in the morning commute and at the kitchen table. It should shape not only our view of “how the world should be,” but how our families, friendships, and personal relationships should be. This is not a top-down message. The Bible-based, culture-transforming change advocated here is one that must begin at the roots before it can progress to the treetop.

The great challenges facing our country cannot be met on a national level if they are not first overcome in each of our hearts and homes. It is in the everyday life of the Common Believer that this culture war will be won or lost, so our growth is essential. It is essential to our peace, our happiness, and our ultimate victory.

In concluding this introduction to what Fire Breathing Christians is, I am compelled to take at least a moment to clarify what it is not.

Though one of the central themes presented here is the empowerment and unique purpose of each and every Common Believer, this is in no way intended to minimize the significance or importance of good, God-fearing leadership. Church history is replete with examples of wonderful men and women who have faithfully served Christ and led His people through the careful use of biblically sound instruction, made possible only through long years of study and personal submission. I do not in even the slightest sense aim to exalt any Common Believer, myself included, above the need for such divinely provided leadership and guidance.

This is also not a work that seeks to denigrate theology, doctrine, or dogma as trivial or unimportant to the Common Believer. Quite the contrary! Theology, doctrine, and dogma are essential to the Christian life, as they literally define it. The approach taken here will be to address pertinent doctrinal matters as we go along without stopping to dwell at length or dive to the furthest depths with regard to any single one of them. I wholeheartedly encourage the pursuit of such depth and will commend the inspired, inquisitive Christian to seek out other works to aid them with their ongoing growth. Biblically-rooted, Christ-centered knowledge is the greatest thing that a human mind can experience, so its unending pursuit should be the most natural sort of desire for every Common Believer.

With the principles of everyday application firmly grasped in one hand and commitment to biblically sound intellectual pursuit in the other, we are well equipped to begin our journey on an individual level so that we might eventually realize transformation on a national scale.

The Secular Inquisition

You and I live in a post-Christian America that is rapidly transitioning into an anti-Christian state. This shift can still be reversed, but only for a little while longer and only if the Common Believer embraces their responsibility to engage the culture. It is my prayer and hope that our God will make use of these words to encourage and empower you to that end.

The Fire Breathing Christian has become both an endangered species and the most feared of creatures from the liberal humanist perspective now dominating the scene. I am convinced that by removing Spirit- and fire-filled believers from that endangered list we can both help every anti-Christian leftist in the nation realize their darkest fears and return America to her God-glorifying foundation. Put another way, we can accomplish great things and have a whole lotta fun in the process.

We will begin our preparation for battle by considering one believer’s stand and the subsequent hate movement mobilized for her destruction. In this example we will find a great deal of valuable information concerning the nature and strategies of our opposition as well as a clear and powerful warning to every Common Believer who would dare take to the field of battle: You will be hated.

American culture is at war with God, His Word, and His people. The active suppression and silence of all Christian thought is a primary goal of the forces currently guiding secular civilization.  We now live in an age of Secular Inquisition and must prepare accordingly.

So I invite you now, one Common Believer to another, that we might begin this most important journey together in the name of the one true God, who is a consuming fire.

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Thank you again for taking the time to read through this portion of Fire Breathing Christians. As I mentioned earlier, more excerpts will be posted in the coming days.

I apologize for a few annoying formatting issues with regard to this post.  The book itself is definitely a polished, smooth production. Unfortunately, that polished smoothness didn’t cut and paste very well, so…

Your patience is much appreciated.

Pre-order and sale information will be posted in late October, 2010. (The Amazon.com listing will be up in the next week or two, as well.)

Thank you for your prayers and support!

SAB

www.FireBreathingChristian.com

Copyright 2010 S.A. Buss

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Heresy Chic: Denningtonism Jumps, Stumbles and Splatters onto the Evangelical Stage

     

Denningtonism is here.

And it ain’t pretty.

Monica Dennington, self-appointed Bible interpreter and theologian, has declared war on Bible interpreters, theologians and those who might find value in what God has chosen to do through them. At the top of her list: Calvinists.

In a thirty-plus-minute tirade posted on YouTube, the high priestess of Denningtonism rambles, rants and rolls through a laughably ignorant yet disturbingly angry attack on those who embrace Reformed Christian theology, also known as the doctrines of grace. A complete, word-by-word presentation and critique of Dennington’s attack video is viewable here.

Charge after charge is made. The most profound of accusations are repeated again and again.

As for the evidence…

Bah! Who needs evidence?

This is Monica Dennington. Monica Dennington needs no evidence, thank you very much!

And if you dare vocalize any opposition to the pronouncements of this founding, self-anointed prophetess of Denningtonism?

Well, you just don’t do that. That would be arguing, and God hates arguing, or at least all arguing not initiated by Monica Dennington.

So says Monica Dennington.

Should they choose to endure Monica’s Scripture-twisting, venom-spewing, evidence-free accusation-fest of a video production, the biblically literate listener is likely to come to two conclusions:

1. Monica Dennington is biblically illiterate and utterly ignorant of even the most basic concepts embraced by those who advocate the doctrines of grace.

2. Monica Dennington is likely to attract a horde of followers.

Biblical illiteracy is epidemic in the American church, and, sadly, that will go a long way toward promoting the spread of Denningtonism.

Pirate Christian Radio did an exceptional job of presenting every word of her video rant and then offering thoughtful, Bible-based criticism, all from a non-Calvinist perspective. Dr. James White has also posted a fine response on YouTube. Both videos can be seen here, and I highly recommend ‘em.

Denningtonism is here, “you guys”.

Pray for its leader, her followers and a shallow American Christendom that allows for the easy acceptance of such unbiblical movements.

Soli Deo Gloria!

 

Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

See also: “Everybody Expects…the Liberal Inquisition!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

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It’s All About Future Me! (The Rise of Science-Fiction Christianity)

I am a sucker for good sci-fi.

Star Wars hit the scene when I was five, and that was all she wrote. I was hooked. From there I dove deep into the original Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica series and have been thrilled to see both successfully re-launched in recent years. There’s no doubt about it: I have embraced my inner geek.

The latest craze to captivate me on the sci-fi front has been the television show Heroes. I’m a bit of a late-comer to the program, having just started the first season on DVD as the fourth is airing on NBC. The show follows seemingly unconnected, ordinary people from around the globe who discover they have extraordinary powers. One of these heroes is a Japanese man named, *ahem*, Hiro Nakamuro. Hiro has the ability to bend space and travel in time.

As he learns to master this amazing ability, he must completely focus, often inspiring the most intense, squinty-eyed of facial expressions just before accomplishing his goal. Sometimes I wonder if his little Japanese head is just gonna pop. So far, so good.

Time travel is a pervasive theme in science-fiction. It’s hard to find a sci-fi series or franchise that hasn’t given the subject a whirl or two…or three.

Star Trek has done it more times than I can count.

While such a basic human fantasy as time travel is perfectly suited for fiction, a troublesome development seems to have overtaken the church.

The “corridor of time” has come to Christianity.

“Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good”

1 Thessalonians 5:21 (ASV)

“When you find Christians who show antagonism toward the doctrine of election, you may be sure that it is a carry-over from their old carnal mind which is enmity against God. They are forced to delete great sections from the Word of God in order to eliminate the doctrine, and, what is more, they are forced to deny the doctrine, which is found throughout all the Bible, that man fell all the way, not part way, and that he is dead, totally dead, in trespasses and sins. But we must not be astonished, for it is merely an illustration of the great desire of fallen man to be exalted and to take some of the credit for salvation to himself.”

Donald Grey Barnhouse 

Standing alongside the wounded sinner as one of the most pervasive and destructive misconceptions impairing the contemporary Christian’s understanding of God’s sovereignty is the notion of the “corridor of time”. This bit of necessary invention was spawned in an attempt to reconcile the clearly taught doctrine of election in Scripture with fallen man’s desire for a seat at the table of power in that election process.

In this view the elect are chosen based upon what God knows they will (or would) do in the future. God looks into the future, sees what choice man will make there, and then bases His decision to elect upon this future expression of man’s will.

This demonstration of man’s persistent quest for credit and denial of God’s complete sovereignty over the election process harkens back to some of the Father of Lies’ earliest masterworks.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say…”

Genesis 3:1 (ESV)

“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

John 8:44 (ESV)

Imagine, if you will, a god.

Imagine also a person; a person created by this god. The person in question will ultimately live forever and ever in a place of abundant life and joy or in a place of unending torment. These are the two great options available to him. He must choose between them. The god in question plays the role of ratifying that choice, but before he can fulfill that obligation, he requires additional insight into the character of the person.

This god has the power to seal the person’s fate, but in order to make a right judgment he must know more. He needs more information. He must consult with the person making the decision before placing a seal on the fate in question. He must know whether the person has chosen a path that will justify the happy ending or the sad one.

Surely the person’s fate must hinge on the person’s action. This is only fair, after all. It’s only right.

Now since this particular god is apparently unwilling or unable to take action based exclusively on the person’s choice in the present moment of time, he devises a remarkable work-around. In a fit of pure genius, the god accesses a sort of tunnel through time.

This portal allows the god to attain any bit of information from the future. It really is quite amazing! It’s just the sort of tool that the god needed. (Necessity is the mother of invention, after all, and I can think of no greater example of this truth than the necessary invention of the “corridor of time”.)

So the god uses this portal – this corridor of time – to look into the future and see what the person whose fate is under consideration will choose there in that future place. Then, and only then, based on what the god sees the person do in the future, the god will act with regard to the person’s ultimate fate.

If the god sees a good future decision made by the future person, then the present person is rightly assigned a good fate. But if the god sees a not-so-good future choice by the future person, well then the fate assigned to the present person by the god is also not so good. This god wants to be completely fair to the present person of course, so ultimately it is the person’s own choice – his future choice – that determines his fate.

Are you with me? I know it’s rough to follow, but hang in there. We’re almost finished.

And yes, it gets even better.

So the god reacts to the future choice of the future person to determine the fate of the person in the present. He waits politely as any good, respectful god should. Thus, the god is absolved of ultimate responsibility for imposing a choice or destiny (or a choice destiny, as the case may be), and the person is given due credit for the [future] good choice he [would have] made. Everybody wins. Everybody’s happy.

See?

It all makes perfect sense, right? It couldn’t be more clear, really: Present self is elected (or not) by future self’s choice and God just kind of watches and waits for future self to clear it all up by making the determinative decision. Then God honors the wishes of future self and imposes them on present self.

All of this is of course, in a word, asinine. Appealing to our fallen human nature, to be sure, but completely nuts from a biblical perspective nonetheless.

“The substance of the Gospel is that man is dead in sin and that divine life is God’s gift. You must go contrary to the whole meaning before you can suppose that a man is brought to know and love Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.”

Charles Spurgeon

“The supposition seems to be that you cannot evangelize effectively unless you are prepared to pretend while you are doing it that the doctrine of divine sovereignty is not true.”

JI Packer

Why do we find such comfort in our fate being “future self” determined? Why is our future self so trustworthy? When did (or will) he become so bright and dependable? What made him such hot stuff?

And why is this future self trusted so blindly over our present self? And which future self will God be consulting with, anyway? The future self of one year from now perhaps, or maybe the future self of three years and two weeks down the road? Or what about the future self that comes fifteen minutes after that?

And why not a past self? Didn’t your four-minutes-in-the-future self of five minutes ago become your present self about sixty seconds ago on his way to becoming one of your past selves? Did he have a serious impact on anything at all when he was still out there somewhere in the future and apparently had a much better chance, since future selves seem to get all of the credit around here? At some point our present self has be wondering why he’s apparently been demoted to the lowest ranking of all selves when he should be the one self we have the best feel for and knowledge of at any given moment. It really is all quite confusing and, somewhere in there, should make a present self angry. I know it does mine.

It all has a decidedly Theology by Abbott and Costello vibe about it, which is not reassuring. And why, oh why, is the will of this future self (whichever one we settle on) so much more comforting and appealing to us than that of the sovereign, holy, loving God we claim to worship? Why is the notion of an eternity sealing decision made by our future self revered while the thought of the same decision being made exclusively by our perfect, Holy God so reviled? The answer is really quite clear…glaring even…

The answer is self.

By our fallen nature, we would choose the will of our self in any form, in any place and in any time over the sovereign will of God. The glory – at least some of it – must go to our precious self, you see, if not now then at least in the future. It simply cannot all go to God.

Some inept, unholy, finite, man-inspired and generally pathetic pseudo-god may well choose to work his magic through something as ridiculous as a “corridor of time” scenario to appease the ego and thirst for glory of man, but the God of Scripture will have none of it. He no more requires the consultation of your future self than he did with your present self before He sovereignly chose you out for good works to His glory and according to His pleasure.

He haggles with His chosen over their election just as he haggled with Saul on the road to Damascus, which is another way of saying, “not at all.”

God has chosen His elect from the foundation of the world. Their actions had nothing to do with His choosing them out. He first chose to give them His Spirit so that they would then choose Him.

Deal with it.

The sooner we embrace this beautiful, liberating truth, the quicker we will find the peace and boldness required of us in this dark time. The longer we linger in the illusory sea of self-centered, synergistic salvation, the more impotent and comical we become, all while maligning the sovereignty and holiness of the very God we claim to love.

There is no “corridor of time” as we have come to understand it. Our fertile, self-glorifying imaginations have merely crafted an interesting bit of science-fiction.

There is no “future me” or “future you” to whom God will look in order to decide our paths.

The future is His. Everything in it is His.

The present is His. Everything between this present moment and any future point is precisely as He has ordained it to be from the very dawn of creation.

What could possibly be more comforting than this?

 

Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

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The Zombie-Driven Church: Finishing Off the “Wounded Sinner”

When I was a kid, I had a thing for zombie flicks. I adored them.

They never really gave me the creeps or kept me up at night because I always knew they weren’t real. Unfortunately, there’s been something of a resurgence of zombies lately and, in this instance, they are quite real.

The “living dead”  in question have overrun, of all things, the church. In the form of what I will refer to here as the “wounded sinner concept”, the spiritually dead enemies of Christ have come to dominate His bride. With this post, I hope to shed a little light and inspire a little reformation so that this zombie horde might at least be recognized as the threat that it poses to every purpose of the church. 

“Virtually every theological heresy begins with a misconception of the nature of God.”

Hank Hanegraaff

“The sensuous Christian lives by his feelings. The spiritual Christian lives by the Word of God.”

RC Sproul

Ours is an age of practical heresy. Simplicity and ease are our guiding principles. The path of least resistance is our favored route.

When did knowing God (as opposed to feeling or experiencing Him) become so unimportant to the church? When did His sovereignty lose its savor? When did we come to define God by worldly standards and test Him by our rules of fairness, goodness and the like?  Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

How is it that we came to the place where His nature and character became little more than moderately interesting theological fine points? How did the God who is the source and goal of every good thing in each of our lives become so utterly trivial to our daily thought life?

Whenever and however it happened, there’s little denying that we’ve become a very shallow people following a very shallow god. As we soberly survey our current situation, we’re sure to notice smoldering wreckage and lethargy where once stood intellectual vitality and pursuit. In the name of spiritualism, we’ve switched off our minds. In doing so we’ve starved our souls and completely compromised our witness to the majesty and glory of God.

The nature of God is the central pillar of the Christian worldview. Every other concept’s flavor and detail descends from our understanding of Him. A right knowledge of His perfect holiness and sovereignty always brings growth, peace, fulfillment and joy. Any corruption in our understanding of His nature and character invariably leads to a cascading series of ever increasing error, loss and pain.

Prayer life, thought life, sex life, politics, friendships, business, art, family…each of these are defined through our understanding of God. His nature and character are everything to us. Our only hope for recovery from the wretched state in which we find ourselves will come through more fully knowing and embracing the holy, sovereign God of Scripture.

Surely we can agree that perpetual increase in knowledge of God is life’s defining relationship for any Christian. It sustains and inspires us as nothing else can. Accepting this, it would follow that a right understanding of our God’s nature and character would be of paramount importance to those who claim Him as Lord. I suspect that very few contemporary Christians would express a contrary sentiment on this subject.

Yet we find ourselves in a strange place today. This seemingly obvious and necessary truth is not often exhibited by contemporary Christendom. What we see from the church is quite contrary indeed.

We swim about to and fro proclaiming the misguided and misguiding notion that the nature of God is nonessential. It’s an extra. As long as we have one central concept down – God is Love, with love being defined by whichever worldly whim prevails at the moment – we’re okay. All is well. Any details requiring more than bumper-sticker sized elaboration are issues for theologians to ponder if they feel the urge.

In our unending pursuit of ease and flight from conflict, we have chosen the quick route to shallow waters. There we have grown complacent and weak. Where once we dove deep and made waves, we now skim the surface and lazily bathe in the light of a dying world.

The Christian fish has come to love shallow waters. He has grown comfortable there. Unfortunately for this fish, his place of quiet, calm comfort is soon to disappear. The tide is about to turn.

We’ve been lured into these inviting waters for a purpose. The world that hates us desires our silence if it cannot have our death. Our enemies pursue the former so that they may one day achieve the latter. The peaceful place in which we’ve grown so complacent is actually a killing pool.

Our killing pool.

We’ve been separated from knowledge of the true nature of God, and once that happens in the life of a Christian, the best that can be hoped for is a sterile life of stagnation.

We have chosen such a life.

Knowledge of Him is essential. It is everything. His sovereignty is everything. His holiness is everything. He has revealed Himself to us for great purpose and benefit, but we have turned away. We prefer to gaze only where self can be found. Yet where He is, our precious, glorfied self cannot be.

And that has always been our greatest problem.

Stronger than any other urge in our fallen nature is the inclination to favor the self. It is our central sin. This narcissism obscures every good thing. It colors our perception so profoundly that, without His intervention, we would be utterly incapable of seeing, much less recognizing, any good thing whatsoever.

We know that this bent away from God and towards darkness is the inherent spirit of every fallen man. It is the nature of the rebellious. It is the natural state from which He has saved us, though we will struggle against it for the duration of our time in this fallen creation.

Unfortunately, many in the church seem to have largely given up the fight and indulged – even formally embraced – this self-focused inclination. We look to ourselves instead of to Him.

As we turn from His detail, light and truth towards our vagaries, darkness and delusion, our minds shrivel. Our theology suffers. Our politics suffer. Our relationships suffer. Our churches grow worldly and their light fades as we lose even the ability to rightly understand and define the very concept of evangelism. Our families grow weak and worldly. Our smiles grow hollow, our worries overtake us and our burdens increase beyond our ability to endure.  Our spirits thirst for knowledge at the gates of our closed minds. Untethered to a loving, correct knowledge and adoration of His divine nature, we cannot fully live.

His holiness and sovereignty are nothing near the optional niceties and trivial attributes we’ve made them out to be. They are the core of His being and therefore they must be the heart of our desire. With this truth in mind, let us seek to embrace the essential beauty that is the nature and character of our Holy Lord. In doing so, I’d like to address a common argument used in the exaltation of self over God: The concept of the wounded sinner.

As we begin this examination, I think it wise to make note of the seesaw principle of doctrinal interpretation as presented here by Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse:

“We have long since adopted the old-fashioned method of the seesaw to test all doctrines. When children are riding two ends of a plank on a seesaw, we know that if one end is down the other is up, and if the first is up the second is down. So it is in the matter of all doctrines. There is an entire set of doctrinal interpretations which exalts man and abases God, and there is another set that exalts God and abases man. We may be absolutely sure that the path of truth, in every case, exalts God. How far did man fall? Only part way, say some, so that he still has the power within his lovable self to lift himself back to God. Man is up in that interpretation, and God is down. But did man fall all the way, so that not one man could ever have been saved unless God had moved to do it all? That abases man to the place where God has said he is, but it exalts God, and that is the true interpretation of the Word of God. The same rule of interpretation may be applied to all the doctrines in theology.”

Bringing glory to God through the complete exaltation of His nature is our goal and purpose. The explicit truth and beauty of His sovereignty and holiness is our everything. Without it, we are lost. We can only find truth when we lay all glory at His feet.

This is, among other things, call to reformation.

Through heeding this call all other things can and will be restored.

Our marriages, homes and friendships will flourish. Our businesses will thrive. Our churches will reclaim their commission and once again bring the brightest light to a fallen world. Our communities and nation will re-emerge from the abyss. Our bodies, minds and spirits will soar as never before.

These things are promised to us, but only through reformation.

“There is a long-standing controversy in the church as to whether God really is Lord in relation to human conduct and saving faith or not. What has been said shows us how we should regard this controversy. The situation is not what it seems to be. For it is not true that some Christians believe in divine sovereignty while others hold an opposite view. What is true is that all Christians believe in divine sovereignty, but some are not aware that they do, and mistakenly imagine and insist that they reject it.”

 JI Packer

 

“How, then, is any man to be saved? God answered this dilemma by the doctrine of election based on the vicarious, substitutionary atonement as provided in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The great hatred which exists in some quarters against the doctrine of election is readily understandable in the light of the fact that Satan was ignorant of it, and that its introduction, as a sort of secret weapon, insured his own eternal defeat and provided for the salvation of the great company of believers who shall, under the graciously given title and position of sons of God, rule the universe for God throughout all eternity.”

Donald Grey Barnhouse

Fallen man is dead – completely, utterly, incontrovertibly dead in sin.

This is a critical issue that has been successfully confused by the enemy.

Where our adversary has clouded the matter, let us now seek the clarity our loving Lord has provided and yield our selves to it. The simple truth of spiritual death as the default position of fallen man is critical to the understanding of salvation and of great importance in knowing the nature of God.

The dead do nothing good. They stink as they rot. That’s about it, and even these are passive activities.

This is the state in which man finds himself.

The Christian must understand that man is born into a state of spiritual death and that he is, by definition, utterly devoid of any ability whatsoever to alter his situation. He knows no good thing. He sees no good thing. He seeks no good thing. As a dead spiritual being, he is deprived of even awareness of his condition and is incapable of action. The only world he knows is death. He cannot comprehend, much less pursue or interact with, the world of life.

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

Romans 3:10-12 (ESV)

This is a point worthy of pause.

Accepting without qualification that fallen man is dead is essential to understanding the nature of sin and the necessity for a completely external intervention where salvation is concerned. Put another way: God has to do everything in order to make a dead man live.

The man makes no contribution.

He does not call out or lift a finger toward the light. The dead do not speak or move.

Any notion that fallen, sinful, rebellious and spiritually dead beings can of their own accord recognize and reach out to the Holy God of Scripture should be purged from the Christian mind. The errors inspired by this one critical misconception alone are so voluminous and corrosive that their detrimental impact cannot be overstated.

Fallen man is dead. As such, he cannot reach out, approach, call for or even see God. God must first come to him and breathe life into his spiritual carcass before it can even see Him and respond in obedience.

Charles Spurgeon explained man’s situation this way:

“Some say that man may through his own efforts attain salvation – that if he hears the Word, it is in his power to receive it, to believe it, and to have a saving change worked in him by it.

To this we reply, You do not know what man is by nature; otherwise, you would never have ventured to make such an assertion. Holy Scripture tells us that man by nature is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). It does not say that he is sick; that he is faint; that he has grown callous, hardened, and seared, but it says that he is absolutely dead.”

The issue here is rather simple, really. It is clear.

Only a fallen will could choose to miss it, and that’s exactly what ours are prone to do. The Apostle Paul knew this all too well:

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

Romans 7:18 (ESV)

The clearer our understanding is on this crucial matter, the greater God becomes. Hand in hand with his ascension is our decline as we shrink into insignificance, all in perfect harmony with the simple seesaw principle enunciated by Dr. Barnhouse. Ultimately, God becomes all and we become nothing.

The countless manners in which we contort, spin, scramble and disassemble this crystalline truth is aimed at one goal and one goal alone: The preservation of self and its glory.

And this is where the greatness of our problem also becomes a bit clearer.

Where we play the decisive role, we must deserve credit. Where we deserve credit, we deserve glory. Where we have any glory, He does not have all glory.

Enter: The thief.

As long as self is credited with any good thing, there is a thief at work. As thieves who have laid claim to God’s own honor, we have corrupted our relationship with Him.

Our philosophies are all tainted, more often than not with terrible consequence.

What we read – how we read – is colored by this corruption. What we think is corrupted as well. How we worship, pray, do business, vote, court and entertain is all altered to accommodate the primacy of the self.

Even our evangelical efforts are profoundly perverted. Indeed, our very understanding and definition of evangelism itself has been wholly compromised by the warped notion of the wounded sinner.

“Let any man create a fly, and afterward let him create a new heart in himself.; until he has done the lesser thing, he cannot do the greater. Besides, no man will. If any man could convert himself, there is no man who would.”

Charles Spurgeon

“Far from inhibiting evangelism, faith in the sovereignty of God’s government and grace is the only thing that can sustain it, for it is the only thing that can give us the resilience that we need if we are to evangelize boldly and persistently.”

JI Packer

The “wounded sinner” simultaneously plagues and infatuates Christendom. His perceived state has come to define the modern day evangelical movement. The very nature of God has been profoundly distorted as a prerequisite for propping up the wounded sinner mirage. Consequently, evangelism’s pursuit has been confounded and confused.

With a belief in the wounded sinner, we have become number driven. Or, put another way, we’ve become glory driven – the glory in question being of the results-verified, self-validating sort. The other edge of this sword brings us the dreadful burden of failure felt when we don’t see the results we desire in pursuit of the honor we so desperately seek. We’ve become slaves to an unbiblical burden to achieve. We judge our success by conversions witnessed and wonder what we might be doing wrong when the numbers don’t point in the “right direction”. Hand in glove with this pressure to perform comes the pressure to conform.

With every man having the same option to vote God in as the next and our result-based glory at stake, the call to joyous proclamation and witness becomes a burden of impossible weight. The wills of men ultimately decide salvation; they will choose the elect. If this is so, our battles with these wills take on a nature never conveyed in Scripture. We are subsequently reduced to the role of pathetic marketers of a reasonable god.

As man is exalted from being “dead in sin” to the “wounded sinner”, God is inexorably devalued. In complete harmony with this realignment comes the redefinition of evangelism itself, elevating our choice and actions as well as those of the wounded sinner to preeminence while eliminating God as the complete Sovereign of His elect. The seesaw is not where it needs to be. Man has been lifted off the ground and God has been lowered in kind. This most dangerous of concessions started us, as it always does, down the slippery slope of compromise with a world that hates us and despises our God.

Yet down that slope we enthusiastically go, accelerating the plunge through our defense of it even as the resultant carnage unfolds before our eyes.

Light, fluffy sermons heavy on milk and light on meat become the norm, as not to scare off the wounded sinners among us. The wretched nature of fallen man is minimized as a matter of routine and love is redefined to include only the most Hallmark worthy of sentiments. The jealous, vengeful God of Moses’ time is said to have “changed” somewhere midstream into a much more pleasant, reasonable fellow. Confrontation is avoided at all costs. “Girls Gone Wild, Bible Style” Scripture study CD sets become not only defensible, but desirable as a mechanism of outreach to the “spiritually wounded”.

Anything to get the attention of the wounded sinner. And when we say anything, we mean anything. Any secular, worldly, rebellious, God-hating thing becomes worthy of emulation. The ends now justify the means.

In the name of Christ, we’ve compromised Him at every turn, all by first denying His sovereignty. We’ve become ashamed of His truth and open cowards in an attempt to appease and lure “wounded sinners” into our midst. And in this we have had great success.

So successful have we been, in fact, that many of our congregations now overflow with wounded sinners. The wounded sinner has come to define many of our churches’ teachings and preaching. These wounded sinners are our comfort, our hope and our joy. They are the motivation for every program, strategy and sermon.

All of this for wounded sinners who in reality do not even exist.

These are dead men and women in our midst. Totally, completely, incontrovertibly dead spiritual beings who are utterly incapable of seeing, much less recognizing and reaching out to, the God of Scripture and His Kingdom. At the end of the day, we’ve tailored our programs, messages and strategies – our teaching and preaching – to accommodate the dead.

So it is that self-centered glorification and “evangelism” have led to death-centered churches. The spiritually dead are embraced, included and encouraged in every way. They come to influence and mold every facet of church organization and pursuit. Church energy and resources become more and more dedicated towards catering to the hopes and desires of spiritual corpses. While zombies are enthusiastically fed in the name of Christ, His sheep are left to starve.

“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

James 4:4 (ESV)

“Evangelicals were once known as “the serious people.” It is sad to note that today many evangelicals are the most superficial of religious believers – lightweight in thinking, gossamer-thin in theology, and avid proponents of spirituality-lite in terms of preaching and responses to life.”

Os Guinness

The dead have come to define much of the church of Christ.

This is what is known in strict theological terms as “a problem”.

In the names of Christ and evangelism, we’ve overseen the transformation of His church. And lest we assume that this is all the accidental effect of misguided but well-intentioned believers, we may rest assured that there are no accidents at work here. There never are. This is not a random thing we’ve witnessed. It has all been carefully crafted. In this transition from God-centered glory and evangelism to the relentlessly self-serving, numbers and results oriented marketing of salvation, we see the unmistakable stamp of the enemy. This is all by his design.

By this design, the elect suffer.

The church home that should be dedicated to deep worship and the equipping His people for the mission of true evangelism has instead gone wandering off, chasing after the mirage of wounded sinners. This glory-seeking church rabidly gives chase with a bouquet of sterilized slogans and homogenized logos in one hand and a warm, ready-to-pat-on-the-back pose cocked and loaded in the other.

As a consequence of our preoccupation with the dead, the elect are not fed. Their growth ceases, if it ever began. They are not equipped to tear down enemy strongholds or destroy enemy positions. They are not equipped to evangelize. The people of God are neglected; left to individually pursue depth and His purpose without the effective support of the body.

This is a great tragedy.

We must return the church to its true calling. Through reformation, we will once again measure church growth first by depth and then by breadth. We will equip believers for the glorious task that the Lord has set before us. We will lay all glory at His feet. We will then be able to proclaim and evangelize…finally evangelize!

From subject to subject, every thought, concept, idea and ideal pondered in the minds of men is inexorably attached to and shaped by the nature of God. This foundational truth must guide us along our path.

Our minds will be renewed as we embrace the Holy God of Scripture. Our Father will open our eyes and hearts to His nature. His character will come to fully form our opinions an all things. Our wills shall be conformed to His, to our everlasting benefit and His everlasting glory.

As we seek, find and submit to Him fully, we will cringe at our current state but above and beyond any anguish or anxiety we may encounter will be the pervasive, perfect, ever gracious love of our Lord. He has brought us to this place for great purpose. He has given us eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart for action.

He has called us to a great mission. He will equip us for the success that He has assured.

Let us now see and hear so that we may soon act, and in doing so bring all glory to Him.

An essential initial step towards this place of perfect peace, purpose and effective action is the dismantling of the “wounded sinner” concept. When this is done, beautiful things will follow.

There will be no more zombie-driven programs.

No more zombie-sensitive strategies.

No more zombie-coddling sermons.

God will be fully glorified. The church will be restored. Christ’s sheep will be fed, and His bride will experience the sort of peace, fulfillment and joy that simply cannot be found where the “wounded sinner” myth prevails.

And then, Lord willing, zombies will be saved. 

 

Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

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