A little over three years ago, God in His incredible mercy open my eyes to His sovereignty in the salvation of lost man. It is interesting to look back and see the progression that He led me through. First, I stood against it in order to prove it wrong and my understanding to be right. Slowly the Spirit, through scripture, revealed to me my lack of understanding in some of the key areas of regeneration, salvation, and sanctification. I’ve spent many, many hours reading, studying, and learning the blessed truths of God’s sovereignty and what it means to believers. In this process, I have had to fight many battles, some with other people, many within my own heart and mind. But at the risk of greatly understating the significance this has had on me and my walk with the Lord; let me say that my understanding of many things has changed.
One of the things that have changed the most is my understanding of the condition of man’s heart. Before, I thought of people as being basically good. Of course, there were some exceptions, Hitler, Bundy, and the like, but for the most part, I saw mankind as basically good people striving to do and be better. The problem with that view is that it describes how man views man. It does not describe how God views man. It was a very man-centered, humanistic worldview that I had! And now I stand utterly amazed, or more like shocked, when I realize how much this way of thinking has permeated the Church.
The revived humanist philosophy of the past 20+ years is most obvious in the way churches seek to improve, expand, and better their churches. Gone are the days when the majority of pastors sought to challenge their parishioners and their culture to pursue godliness, holiness, humility, and sanctified lives through the proclamation of expository sermons and powerful exegesis. Today most pastors’ top priorities are numbers, reputation, and excitement (buzz). These goals are completely humanistic in their motivations. Let me explain by looking at these “priorities” individually.
First, let’s look at numbers. In today’s modern church there is not greater measure of success than numbers. Numbers in the minds of most people trump increasing spiritual maturity by a long shot. But how can we claim that we are preaching a Biblical message that is drawing hundreds and even thousands and being elevated to almost celebrity status when the Bible clearly states that the true Word of God will have the opposite affect, abandonment and persecution.
Matthew 13:21 - But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
Luke 6:22 - Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
Matthew 7:14 - But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
We know from scripture that the biblical message of repentance repels most people. It does not attract the masses. 1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. The only way to consistently draw large crowds (of unchurched people) is to continually offer them what they want to hear, and we know from scripture that they do NOT want to hear the truth!
This driving desire to have numbers has slowly eroded the two main purposes for which we have church services, the worship of God and the equipping of the saints. To the surprise of most modern Christians, the main purpose of our services is NOT evangelism! In the New Testament, we find that the vast majority of evangelism was done by the individual believers outside the context of the worship service. The early church did not create a festival atmosphere where anyone at anytime would “pop in” to “give them a try” (Acts 5:11-14).
Scripture makes it clear also that the early church saw an explosion of new converts. But these new converts were not simply seeking a purpose for their life or their best life now in order to become a part of the coolest, hippest, rockin’est church in the area. No! They were rejecting a life of carnality and the pleasures of this world through genuine repentance to become a part of a group (the Body of Christ) that were being persecuted, even unto death, by the government under which they lived.
As we have slowly left the original purpose of church services behind, we have seen the prophetic words of Charles Spurgeon’s sermon “Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats” fulfilled. In it, Spurgeon said, “The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them.” (You can read it in its entirety here, www.crossroad.to/Quotes/Church/Spurgeon.)
This leads me to the next to priorities of the modern church which we will discuss next time.
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