How to Ward Off the Hornets of Heresy

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Commendation for the Steadfast," a sermon on Revelation 3:8-10, first published in 1884.

ne says to me, "Are you not perplexed about the prevalence of modern thought—the new phase of divinity that has come up of late, and the general progress that is being made towards a new theology? Does it not trouble you?"

Not a bit. Modern ideas do not affect me in the slightest. If all men that live or ever shall live should throw up the old Calvinism, there remains one that will hold it, for this reason—that he could not hold any other: I must be crushed out of existence before my convictions of the truth of the doctrines of grace in the old-fashioned form can ever be taken from me. I am miserable, wretched, lost if the doctrines of grace be not true. I am joyous, glad, strong, happy if these doctrines be true. I cannot give them up, therefore; and especially because as I read, and the more I read, I perceive these things to be written in the word of God, and therefore I must hold them.

In this church we feel very little of the temptation which tries all the world: very seldom are any of our friends unsettled in their minds, or tormented with these hornets of heresy.

"Alas," said one minister to me, "I see some of my best people becoming sceptical; are you not worried by seeing the thoughtful ones drifting off into new views?"

"No, not at all."

"Why not?"

"Because the grace of God keeps our people to their moorings. They know what they believe and they have no desire to change." If a man does not believe the doctrines of grace, he comes to hear me once, and he says, "I am not going there any more." He talks to some of you, and you are so dogmatic, and firmly rooted, he calls you pig-headed, and says it is no use arguing with such bigots; and so he goes to argue somewhere else. This is exactly as we would have it. When a bushel is full of wheat the good corn keeps the chaff, out of the measure.

This is the Lord's way of delivering those who keep his word: thus he shuts them away from the temptation that comes upon others. He seems to say, "Dear child, since you will not go beyond my written word, you shall not be tempted to go beyond it. I will cause the enemies of the truth to leave you alone. You shall be offensive to them, or they to you, and you shall soon part company."

Remember how Mr. Bunyan pictures it. When Talkative came up to gossip with Christian and Hopeful, he chattered away upon all sorts of topics, and they were wearied with him. To get rid of him, Christian said to Hopeful, "Now we will talk a little about experimental godliness;" and when they began to speak about what they had tasted and handled of divine truth, Mr. Chatterbox dropped behind. He did not like spiritual conversation, neither do any of the breed. The holy pilgrims were not so rude as to tell him to go; they only talked about heavenly things, which he did not understand, and he went of his own accord. I believe that result is sure to follow holy conversation and sound preaching.

Keep to the truth, and the modern school will give you a wide berth. But if any of you try the double-shuffle in religion—the plan of trying to believe a little of everything and not much of anything—if you try to hold with the hare and run with the hounds, you will be tempted to deadly error, and it will serve you right. In the temptation you will fall, for indeed you are fallen already. Keep the word of God, and the word of God will keep you. You will be shielded from half the temptations that fret and worry professors if you take your place and keep it against all comers.

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Was Spurgeon KJVO?

by Phil Johnson

e don't normally delve into the debate over Bible versions. The issue seems to attract people who are overzealous or slightly unhinged—and always in a bad mood. Besides, James White's The King James Only Controversy covers all the important ground far better than we could ever say it in blog-post-sized bites.

Still, there is one issue I'd like to address that seems to come up whenever someone has been reading too much Ruckmanite propaganda. Here's a sample question from a reader who wrote me looking for a debate about whether the King James Version is inerrant and verbally inspired:

I have read the statements of many men in the 17 through 19th centuries, including the venerated Spurgeon, that indicate they believed the King James to be the word for word correct, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word of God.

My reply:

Uh, you might want to read Spurgeon again. Spurgeon loved the KJV but did not regard it as infallible. He gave preachers this advice:

Do not needlessly amend our authorized version. It is faulty in many places, but still it is a grand work taking it for all in all, and it is unwise to be making every old lady distrust the only Bible she can get at, or what is more likely, mistrust you for falling out with her cherished treasure. Correct where correction must be for truth's sake, but never for the vainglorious display of your critical ability. [Commenting and Commentaries, p. 31.]

In message 1604, "Heart Disease Curable," Spurgeon says,

Concerning the fact of difference between the Revised and Authorised Versions, I would say that no Baptist should ever fear any honest attempt to produce the correct text, and an accurate interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. For many years Baptists have insisted upon it that we ought to have the Word of God translated in the best possible manner . . .. By the best and most honest scholarship that can be found we desire that the common version [KJV] may be purged of every blunder of transcribers, or addition of human ignorance, or human knowledge, so that the Word of God may come to us as it came from His own hand.

And in his autobiography, recounting the laying of the foundation-stone of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon explains why they chose a Grecian design for the building: "Greek is the sacred tongue, and Greek is the Baptist's tongue; we may be beaten in our own version [the KJV], sometimes; but in Greek, never" (Autobiography, vol. 2, p. 327).

Spurgeon used, and preferred, the Authorized Version. He did not regard the translation as inerrant.

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Altering altar calls

by Dan Phillips

We had a great confabulation yesterday, during which I didn't much share my thoughts. So, here they are, enumerated for your dancing and dining pleasure, based on some of the Scriptures and argumentation provided so ably in the previous meta.

1. The very term altar call should give any Christian pause. We don't have an altar here. We shouldn't be calling men to an "altar," we should be calling them to Christ... and there's no way in the world I'm going to start using the phrase "Christ call." [UPDATE: btw, a few hours after writing that, something occurred to me. Premise: the only "thing" we should care about calling men to isn't a thing, it's a Person: it is Jesus Christ. Observation: but if we were to stop calling it an "altar call," and dubbed it instead a "Christ call," then it might cease immediately. Because what Biblically-instructed pastor could ever with a straight face try to connect walking somewhere on earth with meeting the Lord Jesus? But if that isn't what we're calling them to, then why are we doing it? And if they don't need to walk an aisle to do it, why make it sound as if they do?]
   
2. Though it is not determinative, it certainly is significant that (A) no evangelist in most Christian history felt the need to do it, and (B) the first to popularize it was the heretic Charles Finney.
3. I've also seen horrid, endless, manipulative altar calls (almost but not quite "anyone who loves his mother, come forward").
   
4. To bid people to "come forward and receive Christ" necessarily creates the impression that Jesus is waiting for them at the front of the church (which He isn't), that there's a tractor-beam of salvation located at the front of the auditorium (which there isn't), and that to meet Him they have to relocate their bodies (which they don't).
5. "Altar calls" with big responses may or may not puff up a preacher, but altar calls with no response make Christ and the Gospel look pathetic and powerless, though neither is either.
6. Further, the primary purpose of assembly is not evangelism but edification.
   
7. Having said all that, the fact that many Calvinists are content to leave it there isn't a happy thing, and isn't adequate. Nor is saying (literally, or in effect) "Oh just let God save them" and "Let the Word do its work" and so forth. To be more specific:
   
8. Simply to say (in effect) "Altar calls are unbiblical and Finneyite, church isn't for evangelism, let people find their own way to God" simply reinforces the (God help us, it had better be) false impression that Calvinists are (A) uninterested in evangelism, (B) indifferent to seekers, (C) cerebral, and (D) arrogantly self-involved.
9. It is always better to point out a better way than it is just to fault the way it's done.
10. Plus, aren't we Calvinists always big about always preaching the Gospel? If there's no Gospel in our preaching of Ephesians 5, Nehemiah 1, Genesis 12, or what-have-you, don't we all say we're doing it wrong?
11. And, that being the case, unless we bar unbelievers or check their baptisms at the door, mightn't the Spirit of God awaken an unbeliever in the assembly?
12. And if that's the case, shouldn't we be the first to scramble to provide the answer to the question "What must I do to be saved?", if it's being asked?
13. And, though we have wonderful arguments against telling people to come forward to be saved, should we not constantly be issuing invitations — that is, urging our hearers to repent, turn, believe, be saved?
14. And so should we not be eager to help anyone on whom the Spirit of God so moves?
15. So I think providing elders and others after a service to talk with anyone moved in any way by the sermon is a great idea, and we should do it — make them available, tell folks they're available, urge folks to avail themselves of them.

Thus far my thoughts on the altar call. I plan related discussions in the near future, Lord willing.

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New series: communicating better — altar calls

by Dan Phillips

Though we prize the preached word, we Calvinists are not always the best at communication to those who are not already with us.

I can speak from experience. Even after I'd become a convinced Calvinist, I continued to find that Calvinists had some awfully dogmatic odd opinions that they virtually never explained — certainly never explained well. (This first will be a specific example.)

I puzzled my way to answers, but not easily. I'm now pretty convinced that a lot of folks who I heard snorting these positions did so themselves because all the other CCKs (Cool Calvinist Kids) also snorted them. They wanted to fit in.

This series (probably both short and very occasional) will be about those kinds of positions and statements.

I'm going to introduce a few such popular Calvinist positions, and open the meta for advocates of those positions to explain the rationale in under two hundred words. Speak in words any Christian can understand. Do not preach to the choir. Be pointed, plain, precise, helpful.

There are no prizes except the knowledge that it may help literally thousands of people express truth better. I'll try to pick a winner. Or a few winners.

NOTE: I will only allow answers, or discussion of answers. I do not plan to allow argument about the position. That isn't the point of these posts.

FIRST CASE: altar call

What in the world is wrong with an altar call? Don't Calvinists believe in evangelism? Don't you believe in preaching the Gospel? Don't you believe in calling sinners to Christ? Didn't Jesus say we should confess Him before men (Matthew 10:32)? Didn't Paul say confession with the mouth was essential to salvation (Romans 10:9)?

What is your better idea?

Answers should address all these points.

Remember: discussion, on-topic, 200-word limit.

Ready... go!

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Promises, promises

by Dan Phillips

Reading through Mark last week, Peter's words arrested me: ὁ δὲ ἐκπερισσῶς ἐλάλει· ἐὰν δέῃ με συναποθανεῖν σοι, οὐ μή σε ἀπαρνήσομαι (Mark 14:31a).

Got that? Great! Let's close in prayer....

No seriously; let me tell you how and why this verse caught hold of me.

Peter spoke this during the last supper the apostles shared before Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus had just dropped the bombshell that every one of them would fall away from Him (Mark 14:27).

Peter, the Mouth that Roared, immediately leaps up to say, "Even though they all fall away, I will not" (Mark 14:29). Peter phrases it in such a way that indicates that it is perfectly conceivable to him that those other losers might bail. "But not I," he says tersely and emphatically — strong adversative (ἀλλ᾽) and no verb.

In response, Jesus agrees with Peter — sort of. Peter is right that he will indeed do differently from the others. But not the way Peter insists. Jesus tells Peter that he alone — Peter — would deny Him three times (v. 30).

Bringing us to Peter's retort given above, for which I'd offer this ad hoc translation: "But he very vehemently kept insisting, 'Even should it be necessary for me to die with You, I absolutely will not deny You!'"

Greekers will note the double-negative — a (pardon me) no-no in English, but in Greek a doubly-emphatic negation. Peter is saying that there is no way he will deny Jesus: "Not! Not!"

We all know the sequel, Peter's miserable failure and his heartbroken weeping.

Now, I don't for a moment doubt Peter's sincerity. Do you? Nor do I question the depth of feeling behind his words, nor the intensity of his intention and full expectation to fulfill them. Peter meant every word he said. Yet he failed. He could not deliver on his promises.

How did the Rock crumble? Where did Peter go wrong? In many ways, actually.

Mostly, Peter's estimations were all off. He did not put a high enough estimation on Jesus' words. He badly underestimated the fierceness of Satan's coming attack, and the intensity of the temptation he'd face.

On the other hand, Peter seriously overestimated his own strength of character and will, his resolve, his ability to withstand temptation in his own strength. So when the trial came, the pressure soared and Peter came up short — far, far short.

Now, turn from this to Hebrews 13:5, which I render thus: "Your way of life must be without love of money, being content with what is at hand; for He Himself has said, 'I absolutely will not abandon you, nor will I ever, ever desert you.'"

Another promise. Another emphatic promise — indeed, a very emphatic promise. The Greek student will count no less than five negatives in the last nine words: "Not, not will I abandon you, neither not not will I desert you." It is, I have heard, the inspiration for the hymn's wonderful words,

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to its foes.
That soul, though all Hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

"Another promise," you say. "Like Peter's." Yes; when I read Peter's double-negative, I thought of this quintuple-negative.

But consider the differences. When God makes this promise, is there any chance, any possibility whatever, that His estimations will be off? Is it possible that God did not know how difficult you would be, elect soul? Did He not know about your weakness, believer in Christ? Your flaws, your follies, your defects?

Did He not know of the difficult life you'd have — what kind of a spouse that person you dated would turn out to be? How your job would go? What would happen to your income, your neighborhood, your church, your health?

Is it possible that God overestimated the power of His grace to be sufficient for you? That He thought too highly of His ability to keep you, and control every last one of your circumstances (personal and impersonal; Psalm 115:3; Proverbs 21:1; Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11)?

If you have the false god of "open theism," yes, I suppose all of those things (and much worse) are possible.

But if you have the almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for your God, then no. His promises are better than the best solid gold.

You can bank everything on them.

Postscript: This truth is of great personal value. I had just written these words when one with a broken heart came to see me, weeping because of a faithless, treacherous person who had callously betrayed him (and many others) for love of a sin, and arrogant refusal to repent.

I had the opportunity sincerely to sympathize, and to share what a wonderful contrast such a person makes with God. Thank God that God never shifts, falters, flips, nor turns traitor. Thank God that "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" stands good now and before the Throne, as surely as "I absolutely will not abandon you, nor will I ever, ever desert you."

Thank God that God is God, and not man.

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Faith vs. Gullibility; Wisdom vs. Skepticism

by Phil Johnson



    charismatic reader took me to task for using the word unverifiable to describe the majority of miracles claimed by modern charismatic faith-healers. That's the language of unbelief, he said. You are making a negative confession.

Extreme gullibility is not true faith, I answered. I have implicit faith in the Word of God. But when today's charismatic celebrities make fantastic or outlandish claims, it's appropriate to seek verification. After all, Paul cited more than 500 eyewitnesses who could substantiate the reality of Christ's resurrection. Why should I take modern anecdotal accounts at face value? Especially when someone with a questionable track record like Rheinhard Bonnke claims he raised an embalmed corpse from the dead and Pat Robertson promotes the story on The 700 Club. It's reasonable to scrutinize such claims with care instead of credulity.

He replied:

Forgive me, Phillip, but your demand for proof has the taste and feel of the devil in it. "Throw yourself down from here if you are really the son of God . . ..Make these stones into bread IF you are really the Son of God . . . Go ahead and prove that you can do these things!!!!!" I hope you are not offended, but that's exactly how all your talk about "verification" sounds to me.

I'm not offended. I can understand how my position might come across like that, and I realize there's a danger of stepping across the line into sheer skepticism. Jesus Himself did not indulge the curiosity of those who wanted Him to show them miracles as mere novelties. He refused to turn His ministry into a traveling show where miracles were done on stage to heighten the sensationalism. (Again, that sets him apart from Bonnke, Robertson, Hinn, and friends.)

But try to hear what I am saying. I don't for a moment doubt God's power to do miracles or to heal. I am not asking someone to do miracles just to put on a sensational show. I don't think it would be right to do that, and in fact one of my complaints against charismatic media figures is their tendency toward sensational on-stage shows, while desperate people are suffering in real wheelchairs at the back of the auditorium. I am saying, "Come off the stage and go to the back of the auditorium and heal some truly disabled people, if you really have the power to heal."

There is no record that anyone ever made such a challenge to Jesus. There was no need to make such a challenge. He did not need to prove that His miracles were genuine; they were obviously so. Furthermore, He healed people who were truly in hopeless straits, and He healed them all, with a hundred-percent success rate. Scripture repeatedly stresses this (Matt. 4:24; 8:16; 12:15; Lk. 4:40; 6:17-19).

We are supposed to test all things by the standard of Scripture, and since there is a such vast discrepancy between the kind of healings that are recorded in Scripture and the stuff we see on TBN, it seems not only fair to ask for authentication, but also I believe it is our clear duty. Too many of these healing evangelists have already been unmasked as charlatans. They are a stain on the church and a reproach to the name of Christ.

Remember, too, that we are also—commanded—to test all things (1 Thess. 5:21).

Maybe it would be wise to concern yourself with your own stuff and leave Brother Hinn alone. If he is a fake, my God is big enough to take care of him.

And God will indeed take care of him in His time. Nonetheless, we are still commanded to test all things. Consider this: if Peter had taken the approach with Simon Magus that you propose taking with Hinn and his ilk, the early church would probably have been overrun with charlatans, too. Or if Paul had taken such an approach with the Galatian legalists, the church might not have endured through into the second century.

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Active Obedience and Substitutionary Atonement

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "The Shame and Spitting," a sermon preached Sunday morning, 27 July 1879 at the Met Tab. See also this dose o' Spurgeon from a few months ago.

here has risen up a modern idea which I cannot too much reprobate, that Christ made no atonement for our sin except upon the cross: whereas in this passage of Isaiah we are taught as plainly as possible that by His bruising and His stripes, as well as by His death, we are healed.

Never divide between the life and the death of Christ. How could He have died if He had not lived? How could He suffer except while He lived? Death is not suffering, but the end of it. Guard also against the evil notion that you have nothing to do with the righteousness of Christ, for He could not have made an atonement by His blood if He had not been perfect in His life. He could not have been acceptable if He had not first been proven to be holy, harmless, and undefiled. The victim must be spotless, or it cannot be presented for sacrifice. Draw no nice lines and raise no quibbling questions, but look at your Lord as He is and bow before Him.


Understand, my dear brothers and sisters, that Jesus took upon Himself our sin, and being found bearing that sin He had to be treated as sin should be treated. Now, of all the things that ever existed sin is the most shameful thing that can be. It deserves to be scourged, it deserves to be spit upon, it deserves to be crucified; and because our Lord had taken upon Himself our sin, therefore must He be put to shame, therefore must He be scourged.

If you want to see what God thinks of sin, see His only Son spat upon by the soldiers when He was made sin for us. In God's sight sin is a shameful, horrible, loathsome, abominable thing, and when Jesus takes it He must be forsaken and given up to scorn. This sight will be the more wonderful to you when you recollect who it was that was spat upon, for if you and I, being sinners, were scourged, and smitten, and despised, there would be no wonder in it; but He who took our sin was God, before whom angels bow with reverent awe, and yet, seeing the sin was upon Him, He was made subject to the most intense degree of shame. Seeing that Jesus stood in our stead, it is written of the eternal Father that "He spared not his own Son." "It pleased the Father to bruise him: he hath put him to grief"; He made His soul an offering for sin.

Yes, beloved, sin is condemned in the flesh and made to appear exceeding shameful when you recollect that, even though it was only laid on our blessed Lord by imputation, yet it threw Him into the very depths of shame and woe ere it could be removed.

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Whither Evangelicalism?

by Phil Johnson



vangelicalism regularly comes under attack from all sides, and let's face it: a lot of the criticism leveled against evangelicals is well deserved. Although I hold firmly to historic evangelical doctrine, I thoroughly despise what the contemporary evangelical movement has become.

That's an important distinction. Evangelical doctrine and the evangelical movement are not the same thing. Nowadays they often look like polar opposites. The movement we usually label "evangelical" abandoned its own doctrinal foundation long ago. The average evangelical today couldn't even tell you what the original doctrinal distinctives of classic evangelicalism were.

In fact, post-modern evangelicals don't really have any clear doctrinal identity. No less than Christianity Today has suggested that diversity is what now defines the movement. That's close, but I'd be inclined to say that the singular characteristic that stands out most among contemporary evangelicals is their distaste for drawing any clear lines between truth and error. They don't like to handle doctrine in a polemical fashion. They especially don't want to be thought "negative" when it comes to declaring their doctrinal convictions. They don't want anyone to think they are "against" what someone else teaches. (What a gauche, fundamentalist attitude that would be!) Almost everything is negotiable within the broad evangelical movement of today.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones saw this trend coming and warned against it. In 1971, during a visit to Austria, he gave a series of lectures that were compiled and published as a booklet, "What Is an Evangelical?" If you haven't read it, you should. Among other things, he wrote,

One of the first signs that a man is ceasing to be truly evangelical is that he ceases to be concerned about negatives, and keeps saying, We must always be positive. I will give you a striking example of this in a man whose name is familiar to most of you, and some of whose books you have read. This is what he has written recently: 'Whether a person is an evangelical is to be settled by reference to how he stands with respect to six points', which he then enumerates. His definition is by reference only to what a person is for rather than to what he is against. He goes on: 'What a man is, or is not, against may show him to be a muddled or negligent or inconsistent evangelical, but you may not deny his right to call himself an evangelical while he maintains these principles as the basis of his Christian position.'

Now that is the kind of statement which I would strongly contend against. I believe it is quite wrong. The argument which says that you must always be positive, that you must not define the man in terms of what he is against, as well as what he is for, misses the subtlety of the danger.

Lloyd Jones warned that doctrinal indifferentism was beginning to drive the evangelical agenda, and he knew that would spell the ultimate demise of the evangelical movement as a truly evangelical entity.

He was right. In many ways and in several contexts, he predicted with spot-on accuracy what was coming. Check his books Preaching and Preachers or Puritanism—or almost anything Lloyd-jones wrote. He warned that neo-evangelical compromise would lead to neo-orthodox doctrines. (That's what the Emerging Church movement signifies, by the way—the triumph of neo-orthodoxy in the evangelical movement.) He predicted the demise of preaching in evangelical circles. He saw forty years ago that doctrinal indifferentism was eating away the foundations of evangelical conviction, and he tried to sound a warning. He was absolutely right.

The evangelical movement that our grandparents and great-grandparents knew is dead. Evangelical principles live on here and there, but the label has been commandeered by people who have no right to it. It has been bartered away by those who promised to be the movement's guardians and mouthpieces—Christianity Today and the National Association of evangelicals being among the chief culprits. But rank-and-file evangelicals are to blame as well, because they were content to abandon their own heritage and run after cheap amusements. The average American today thinks evangelicalism is a political position or a religious ghetto rather than a set of biblical beliefs.

I frankly don't care if neo-evangelicalism dies as a movement. Frankly, I hope it does—the sooner, the better.

Meanwhile, we need to remember that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Public relations, fad-chasing, and the combined clout of a large politically-driven movement add nothing to the saving power of the gospel; rather, they deflect it.

Church history teaches us another important lesson: The gospel has only rarely made great gains on the back of massive, popular movements. It's the quiet, sometimes unrecognized and unsung labors of faithful individuals that often result in the most profound, long-term impact for the kingdom of God.

Furthermore, the truth will eventually defeat every error and outlast every fad. We ought to pursue the truth and distrust the fads, not vice versa.

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February 11: the most pivotal day in my life (Biblical lessons to learn [requested classic re-post])

by Dan Phillips

The first word which I wrote unto you, O Pyrophilus—and the second — related the Lord's dealings in my life. They started in the eternal counsels of the Trinity, and worked out in my own history, culminating in my conversion on February 11, 1973.

But my conversion featured some aspects that probably raised an eyebrow or three hundred. I spoke of a voice, I read C. S. Lewis, I "walked the aisle," I was read the Four Spiritual Laws, I "prayed the prayer." What's up with all that?

One's conversion can be instructive (1 Timothy 1:16). I hope mine own is. And so, now, these observations, musings, questions, and/or lessons:

1. Do not decide that any living person cannot be saved. Know that I was virulently anti-Christian. I was known campus-wide as a Christian-hater. I was, if you will, evangelistically anti-Christian. I was like Elymas in Acts 13: if I saw evangelism going on, I did my best to foil it. I was arrogant, cocky, foul-mouthed, condescending; "formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent" (1 Timothy 1:13). I had contempt for my fellow-cultists who had a "live and let live" attitude towards Christianity. If Christians were engendering false fear, and giving false hope, they should be stopped. And I aimed to stop them.

I'm not sure whether Greg knew all this or not. If he did, it didn't deter him. You see, it says, "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Timothy 1:15). So this bad person you're thinking of not witnessing to — is he really nasty? Is he dead-set against Christ? Is he smarmy, sarcastic, cutting, smug? So then, are you saying that he is a sinner?

Well then, that's great news. See that is exactly the sort Christ came to save! Do not assume that this man or woman is beyond the Gospel. Tell him the truth of Christ straight, with intelligence and love, and leave the rest to God.

2. Sow with hope. Greg was not the first Christian to try to talk to me. Many Christians tried to talk to me, and I blew them off. Some of them have (reportedly) long-since apostatized. Others surely prayed for me. The Lord heard those believing prayers, and He broke up the hard soil of my heart, so that I could receive the good seed, hold it fast, and bear fruit (cf. Mark 4).

Not right away. Not nearly. But eventually.

3. There is no one method of evangelism. Which is the right way to deal with people? The way Jesus dealt with Nicodemus? Or the very different way He dealt with the Syro-Phoenecian woman? Or the distraught father in Mark 9:14-27? Or the woman at the well in John 4? Or the rich young ruler? Or Zacchaeus? Which was the right way?

Of course they all were the right way. Legitimate commonalities can be found among them. Nevertheless, if one doesn't also acknowledge significant differences in tone and approach, one is reading the texts through funny glasses.

To be specific, I believe God has used street preaching. He's used "cold" evangelism, that doesn't necessarily have much more context than, "Nice day. So, has anyone ever told you about Jesus Christ?" God has used tracts (even bad ones), videos, books, billboards, "friendship" evangelism, door-to-door. And He has used altar calls.

He has used them if they had the Gospel in them. Because it is the Gospel, and not our flawless method of presenting the Gospel, that is the power of God resulting in salvation for everyone who believes (Romans 1:6).

If Greg had said to me that first day, after I got into his car, "Did you know that God loves you and Jesus died for your sins?", I might have argued. Or I might have said "Yes, and not interested, respectively." But that would have been our last conversation; I'd just have walked home from then on. It would have slammed my mind shut.

Instead, Greg befriended me, and took the slower approach of building a rapport and credibility, though he had specifically pointed to the door on our first conversation. But it was no pressure; no personal pressure.

Then later, the Holy Spirit applied all the pressure that was needed, and I needed to talk to someone, and Greg was just the man — because I knew he, and his faith, were genuine.

People aren't all plastic figures. They're (we're) complex individuals. One size does not fit all.

4. Show the way of God, but show love as well. I had no interest in hearing about the former from Greg until I'd seen the latter.

I think professional, full-time arguers have an important ministry. But their ministry isn't most of ours. Most of us need to do the hard work of showing love, so as to create a context for the Gospel. It isn't our love that saves anybody, it's the Gospel (Romans 1:16-17). But it can be our love that makes anyone willing to hear the Gospel from us.

Shining as lights in the world (Philippians 2:15) means more than being able articulately to describe light, and contrast it from its opposite. It means showing forth its qualities in a credible witness. It means integrity, and integrity means (among other things) love and grace.

5. Be real. Fairly or (more probably) unfairly, I saw most Christians as sloganeering, shallow, plastic, hypocritical fools. If Greg had only unctuously said, "Yes, friend, I once had problems just as you do. But Jesus fixed all that up, and now I'm perfect and happy all the day!", I'd've cocked an eyebrow, and become scarce.

Instead, Greg affirmed that he'd seen the same inside himself that I was discovering within my own heart. He was "a man of like passions." That helped me want, ultimately, to hear the Word from him. He could point me towards solutions, but they'd been solutions he'd needed and used first.

6. God saves perfectly through imperfect means. It's odd that I should need to make this point to Reformed readers, yet here we are. Who saves? We Reformed loudly shout, "God!" God is the one who foreknows, calls, justifies, glorifies (Romans 8:29-30). God is the one who draws, gives live, redeems, saves.

But He does all this through means (Romans 10:13-17), and those means are without exception imperfect means. (I suppose the exception would be those cases where someone is converted solely through reading the Hebrew OT or the Greek NT.) Or do you think that your evangelism is the exception to that rule? If so, God help you, God help your hearers, and God help those who don't share your perfection.

A brief aside: you may have noted that I did read the Bible before and through the process. I had "studied" the Gospels, enough to be bothered by them. And as I came under conviction, I read the Gospel of John.

There is, to be sure, irony in the fact that God used means in my conversion that I myself would not use today, in evangelism. But if you bristle at my insistence that God used these imperfect means, please re-read my testimony (especially part two) more carefully. You and I share legitimate concerns about what the Four Spiritual Laws, Lewis, and altar calls might either mis-communicate, or leave out. We are concerned about a smaller Savior, a less sinful man, a less sovereign God, a more exalted view of free-will and human decision-making, among other things. These are legitimate concerns.

But NONE of those things made an impact on me, because GOD was using the truth in them to save me.

Read my testimony, and you will see that the elements in all those sources that God pressed home upon my mind were my lostness, my hopelessness, my unbridgeable distance from God due to my sin, Christ's Lordship and Deity, Christ's truth, Christ's uniqueness, and the fact that God called me to find forgiveness through faith in the Jesus Christ presented in the Bible alone.

I daresay that if you have trouble with that Gospel, you have trouble with the Gospel.

So suppose some precise soul had waylaid me on my way down the aisle, dragged me into a side-room, and asked me, "So, you think Jesus is just some problem-solving Mr. Fixit who is at your beck and call, some glorified embodiment of myths and legends, waiting helplessly down at the front of this aisle for your free-will to activate Him at your command? You think you're going to go save yourself? Is that it, hippie-boy?"

I might have said, "I don't know about any of that. But I am convinced that I need Jesus, God's only Son, to save me from the ruin of sin and [garbage] that is me, and bring me to God. Someone down there is going to help me find out how. Jesus is my only hope. Don't try to stop me; I don't want to have to hurt you [cf. Matthew 11:12] — especially in church."

So if your or my view of evangelism leaves us feeling superior to other Jesus-preaching Christians (pace Philippians 1:14-18), as if God saves more people better because of our purity and perfection... just whoa.

If there is something seriously wrong with a Gospel that exalts the sinner, I think there is no less wrong in a Gospel that exalts the preacher.

7. Dude—you said you heard a voice? I said nothing of the sort. I said, "It was as if a voice came back." So what do I think that was? Do I think it was the actual voice of God, brushing Scripture aside to address me directly, by special revelation?

No. I think it was a result of God the Holy Spirit working in my mind to convict me of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8-11). I think the "voice" was my own conscience, but it was the distillation and the culmination of what God had already been impressing on me by an agonizing process that took months and months. It was the focused application of what I'd already seen from the Gospels, laid on my own wretched heart and the destruction of my false foundation. It was nothing like prophetic revelation, which is direct and unmediated.

In sum: I was saved by the sovereign mercy and grace of God, to whom alone be the glory. In my conversion, He used (as He regularly does) "the foolishness of preaching" (1 Corinthians 1:21).

This does not serve to commend our degrading the Gospel by adding our human follies. Nor does it rule out Biblical assessment of evangelistic methods and contents. But it does serve to humble us appropriately, and counsel grace towards others who preach Christ through different means, because it serves to exalt our gracious, saving God.

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Adorn the Gospel (2)

by Frank Turk

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

So the last time, we left off here: somehow good works adorn sound doctrine. Somehow, the facts about God ought to be adorned with a people who are a "model of good works". And it's your job to preach doctrine and the consequences of those doctrines -- that is, how to live now that this is true.

And we're all protestants here (more or less), so we're not hardly on about good works somehow meriting our salvation. We believe it's by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone that we are saved, right? So what's all this then about a "model of good works" and "show yourself" and "adorning the Gospel"? Aren't we right and sound to nod solemnly as the doctrine is recited and the creed is announced in service and there it is?


yeah: no.

Here's the thing: the church is a consequence of the Gospel. That is, the Gospel causes the church. And when the church is caused, it's not like in Tommy when the pinball wizard finally gets his sight back those who want to be like him simply don his uniform and play pinball with blinders on -- we don't just wear the Jesus t-shirt or the Jesus ties and hair bows and watch whatever it is God is going to do.

Someplace Paul says that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (it's Eph 2 in case it's not canonical unless I cite the verse numbers) That is, we are raised to new life in the resurrection of Christ -- because Christ has died for our sin, we can have His new life right now. So, dear pastor reader, your charge here is to make a people not only who know good doctrine in the propositional sense, but to make a people, through the preaching of the word, who do good doctrine and adorn good doctrine and the Good News of Christ by the new life that they live together.

I know on the surface that doesn't seem like much of a point. But let me ask you something: is your church a community against which, as Paul says, outsiders have nothing evil to say about you? Yes -- in fact, it may be. But is there anything good an outsider would be somewhat impressed by? I'm sure all the children are well-mannered, and all the women are modestly dressed. But does your church adorn the Gospel, making the Gospel itself somehow appealing to those who need it the most?

Do your people look like the resurrection, or merely the undead? You take a look at them, and you decide.

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February 11: the most pivotal day in my life (part two [requested classic re-post] )

by Dan Phillips

My problems

So, as I explained, I had two problems. The minor problem was Jesus, the major problem was me.

How can I say Jesus was a "minor" problem? As I explained, I had this nagging awareness that His teaching wasn't really quite what my cult made it out to be. But in itself, that wasn't a huge issue. Jesus was one religious teacher among many. A really impressive "one," true; but just one. Knowing that He disagreed with me was not, in itself, shattering.

But when conjoined to the major problem, it took on a different significance. See, I had realized that I basically was the founder of my religion. I was my authority, my judgment and character were the basis. And I'd come to see that this foundation was irredeemably corrupt.

Praying, but not "through"

So I actually prayed, which was new. We Religious Scientists (like Christian Scientists) did not pray. To speak to God implied separation from God, and we believed we were one with Divine Mind. So we meditated, we affirmed. We didn't pray.

But now I did, as I became increasingly gripped with a desire to know God, and be saved—though I'd not have used the word—from the wretched heap of my internal life.

I remember praying once, in my darkened room, "Father—" I got no further. It was as if a voice came back: "Who said I was your Father?"

I had to admit, "I did." And that was precisely the problem.

So, shaken, I prayed that God would lead me to know Himself on His own terms, as He really was, whether He was such as I wished Him to be, or wholly other. I was willing to do anything, be anything. "Even if it means becoming a Jesus Freak," I said, because that was the worst thing I could think of.

Well.

God's mole

Meanwhile, as they say in the movies, I had been befriended by this Christian named Greg. He'd seen me walking home from school and offered me a ride. We went to the same high school, but I hardly knew him. Still, it was nice of him, and became a daily thing.

I asked Greg early on what his religion was, since that sort of think interested me. Greg told me he was a Christian. "If you ever want to know why, or have any questions, just let me know," he added.

"You bet," I replied. That was never going to happen.

Fast-forward a few months of this agonizing process I've described, and that all changed. I had shared with Greg about some of the garbage—though this was not my exact term, you understand—that I was finding within. Greg sympathized and commiserated. He was a very real person, not like most shallow, sloganeering, plastic Jesus-people I had known.

Greg gave me a gospel of John in some modern rendering, which I read. He also gave me C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I liked to think I was smart, but most of it was well over my head. Except one part. You know the part.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

I remember reading this with a sinking heart. Lewis was talking about me. I was always insisting that Jesus was a great teacher, the greatest—yet I had kept running into things that this "great teacher" taught, that I did not believe, did not want to believe.

And what of that? I'd already established that I, and my judgment, formed no fit foundation for life and thought. But what of Jesus? Here was someone we held to be the greatest teacher, the greatest example, the greatest mystic. His life was a life of integrity. The unparalleled symphony of miracles in his life, with the crescendo of the Resurrection, made perfect harmony with the claims He made for Himself. It all fit. If I was no fit foundation, was He?

So somewhere here I surely shocked my friend Greg by telling him I wanted to talk. And talk we did. For hours, and hours. First, at my parents' house. Then the next day, a rainy Saturday, after I'd been at a meeting for the Religious Science church youth group (I was a co-leader; also, I'd taken two of the cult's four-year ministerial training course).

I threw every question I had at Greg, and he kept telling me about Jesus and what the Bible said.

At the end of our second talk, Greg said, "Why don't you just ask God? Ask God if He wants you to believe in Jesus, in order to know Him. What would you be out?"

Made perfect sense to me. So ask I did.

...and the roof didn't cave in

The next day, I went to church with Greg. It was Van Nuys Baptist church, pastored by Harold Fickett. I remember that Fickett preached like a lawyer building an airtight case. I felt myself to be the defendant, and guilty as... well, as sin. I wish I could tell you what he preached. I can't. But I can tell you it was as if Fickett had read my journal. Hundreds of people there, the man had never met me, but it iwas as if he had m ein his cross-hairs and was squeezing off direct-hit after direct-hit. Fickett absolutely nailed me to the pew. And as it all fell apart, it all fell together.

At the end, Fickett gave an invitation. If you wanted to find out how to know Christ as Savior, come up front, someone would help you. Greg said he'd come with me if I wanted. I did want. So up we went. They may have been singing "Just As I Am," which would have expressed my longing exactly.

The man who talked with me used the Four Spiritual Laws. I remember with crystal clarity when the counselor talked about how my sin separated me from God. This described and made sense of exactly what I'd been coming to see within myself.

Then he showed how Jesus was the sole mediator between God and man, and this made sense of the unbridgeable gap I'd come to see between God and me. It also connected so well with that stubborn text, John 14:6, which had so bothered me (as I mentioned in the first part, and discussed more fully elsewhere). Jesus was the way, none could come to the Father but through Him. Including me.

Then the counselor showed the picture of the chaos of the self-ruled life, and this described me to a "T." I hadn't indulged in some of the particular vices of my generation. But had I loved God above all? Never. Had I taken His name in vain? Constantly and with gusto. Had I dishonored my father and mother? Since I could talk. On and on it went.

And then we prayed together, and I implored Jesus Christ in His fullness to be my Lord and my Savior, to make me His own, and to forgive me of all my sins.

Was it an emotional experience? The emotion I remember feeling first was relief, in the sense that I had come to rest on a real and true foundation in Jesus Christ. "Rock of Ages" was very meaningful to me, as was "How Firm a Foundation." That I now could know God, on His terms, and be forgiven my sins. The next I remember was how new everything was to me—God, me, my world, the Bible.

Almost especially the Bible. It was as if someone had come and stolen that dusty, dry, depressing, dead, irrelevant history-book, and replaced it with something that was electric, something that was alive. I could not get enough of it. On my knees, reading and reading, delving, diving, exploring, trying to absorb the whole of it. It was God talking to me!

And my, how I needed Him to talk to me. Everything had to be re-thought, re-learned: the meaning of God, of things, of people, of self; how to think and decide; how to pray; how to live. I was conscious that I had had it all wrong, and needed to get it right. Because it mattered now.

Everything changed for me on that day, and since that day: February 11, 1973. Thirty-six years, and counting. The progress has had ups and downs, lags and leaps, "many dangers, toils, and snares." But the Christ I prayed to that day became my Lord that day, and by His grace He remains my Lord, and by His grace and covenant will so remain.

Afterthought

But some of that was done "wrong," wasn't it? Altar call? C. S. Lewis? A "voice"? Four spiritual laws?

Some closing thoughts on that, and more, next time.

[This way to closing thoughts]

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Prayer Request

by Frank Turk

Over the weekend, Darrin Patrick of the Journey in St. Louis, MO, was bitten by a brown recluse spider -- which many of you know is nasty business. Darrin went to the hospital and was treated, but now has a staph infection.

You probably don't know Darrin. I had coffee with him once. He has a wife and 3 kids whom he loves, and a church full of people who used to be lost but now love and serve Jesus. Please pray for the recovery of this brother, father, husband and pastor.

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Continuationism and Credulity, East and West

by Phil Johnson

Last time we posted on this subject, I figured we had said enough about it, and I had no plans to bring it up again. But I get lots of e-mails from charismatics who want to argue about cessationism, and lately they have seemed to come more frequently and with more passion than usual. Maybe this will help:

've said in the past that I've never met a real continuationist. Every charismatic I have ever discussed cessationism with ultimately admits that certain key features of the apostolic era are no longer in operation. For example, no one is writing new books of Scripture. No one can credibly claim to have raised the dead. The gifts of healing and prophecy claimed by today's charismatics are not of the same character or quality as "the signs of a true apostle" (2 Corinthians 12:12).

In fact, all the charismatics I know who are basically orthodox when it comes to the gospel and the authority of Scripture will freely admit that there are not even any "true apostles" today—i.e., there is no one today whose teaching is infallible and authoritative in the same sense Peter's and Paul's apostolic ministries were.

What is that but a kind of selective cessationism?

I once also remarked that anyone who believes he truly does possess an apostolic-quality gift of healing ought to be exercising that gift in hospitals and in doctors' waiting rooms, where such a gift could do the most good.

A charismatic reader wrote to challenge that suggestion:

Where in Scripture do we find those with the gift of healing purposefully going around looking for sick people to heal, and then healing every sick person they find?

I wrote back:

It seems to me that is precisely what Jesus Himself did:

"Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them" (Matt. 4:23-24).

Sometimes the sick were brought to Him:

"They brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick" (Matt. 8:16).

Other times, He actively sought them out:

"Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people" (Matt. 9:35).

He also sent the disciples on precisely the kind of mission I proposed for those who believe they have gifts of healing:

"He went round about the villages, teaching. And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits . . . And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them" (Mark 6:6-7, 13).

Christ's reputation as a healer did not escape the notice of anyone, and Scripture repeatedly says He healed all the sick He encountered:

"And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole" (Mark 6:56).

"All they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also came out of many. . ." (Luke 4:40).

"And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all" (Luke 6:19).

"God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him" (Acts 10:38).

Same with the apostles in the earliest days of the church:

"And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one" (Acts 5:14-16).

I defy any modern charismatic to demonstrate that anything on this scale this is happening anywhere today.



My correspondent replied:

Perhaps we in the West do not see much of the power of God because of the practical atheism of our Weltanschauung. We may fight for the inerrancy of Scripture, but do we not often turn the Bible into a catalogue for a museum of extinct species, rather than seeing it as a field guide to test what is happening in the world around us today?

Oh, brother.

Frankly, that sort of East vs. West rhetoric is a tired cliche that has been answered repeatedly. I think it was John Wimber who first popularized the "we're just too Western" argument among charismatics. I'm amazed people are still parroting the claim, because it is so easily refuted.

Over the years my ministry has taken me numerous times to India, Korea, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. And I can tell you definitively that Charismatics who have lived their entire lives in the East have no better success rate when it comes to miraculous healings than my charismatic friends who grew up in Tulsa, or those who hold healing crusades in suburban Los Angeles. People steeped in mysticism may be more credulous when it comes to believing outlandish claims, but that doesn't count. The point is that the miracles being done by charismatics in the East are no more numerous or spectacular than what Benny Hinn does. (In fact, Benny puts on a much more impressive show than the average Asian faith-healer, and that's why he attracts such massive crowds when he visits there.)

The opportunities for miracle-workers abound in some Asian cultures, if any real miracle-worker would step forward and seize the moment. For example, every train platform in every major city in India is swarming with beggars, most of whom are sick or seriously disabled. I have traveled extensively by train in India, sometimes with sincere charismatics (ranging from young YWAMers to old-line pentecostals; people coming from both Eastern and Western hemispheres). Never once have I met a charismatic who took the opportunity on one of those train platforms to perform—or even attempt—the kind of miracle Peter did in Acts 3:6-7. The only "healings" I've ever seen charismatics claim in India are the same unverifiable back-straightenings, leg-lengthenings, and other non-visible "cures" you can watch every week on Benny Hinn's program.

In fact, the most spectacular "signs and wonders" I have ever witnessed from charismatics in India are the same laughter and animal noises that were sweeping Western charismatic churches ten years ago. And those phenomena were imported to Indian churches from Western sources.

Non-Christians in India are totally nonplused by such claims, because these are the same sort of phony miracles routinely claimed by almost every guru and mystic in Hinduism. (Look up Sai Baba if you'd like to meet a particularly interesting non-Christian counterpart of Benny Hinn.)

Credulity may be more common among Christians in the East. Genuine miracles certainly are not.

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Message for a Worldly Church

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Restoration of Truth and Revival," an article published in the December 1887 Sword and Trowel.

t is clear to every one who is willing to see it that laxity of doctrine is either the parent of worldliness, or is in some other way very near akin to it. The men who give up the old faith are the same persons who plead for latitude as to general conduct. The Puritan is not more notorious for his orthodoxy than for his separateness from the world.

Liberal divines do not always command the respect of the public, but they gain a certain popularity by pandering to prevailing tastes. The ungodly world is so far on their side that it commends them for their liberality, and rails at the orthodox as bigots and kill-joys.

It is a very suspicious circumstance that very often the less a man knows of the inner life, and the less he even cares to speak of it, the more heartily he is for the new theology, the theory of evolution, and the condemnation of all settled doctrine.

Those who would have a blessing from the Lord must avoid all this, and determine to follow the Lord fully. Not only must they quit false doctrine, but they must receive the gospel, not as dogma, but as vital truth. Only as the truth is attended with living faith will it prove its own royal power.

Believers must also sweep the house of the leaven of worldliness, and the frivolities of a giddy generation. The evil which is now current eats as doth a canker, and there is no hope for healthy godliness until it is cut out of the body of the church by her again repenting, and doing her first works.

Those who through divine grace have not defiled their garments must not content themselves with censuring others, but must arouse themselves to seek a fuller baptism of the Spirit of God. Perhaps these evils are permitted that they may act as a sieve upon the heap gathered on the Lord's threshing-floor. Possibly they are allowed that our apathetic churches may be aroused. We know already of several cases in which true ministers have gone over the foundation truths again with their people, and have preached the saving Word with clearer emphasis. In other cases churches have been summoned to special prayer about this matter.

This is a good beginning: let it be carried out on the widest scale. As one man let us cry mightily unto the Lord our God, that he would arise and plead his own cause. Now, if never before, let those who are loyal to Jesus and his Word be up and doing. A boundless blessing is waiting for the asking. We believe in prayer. LET US PRAY LIKE ELIJAHS.

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February 11: the most pivotal day in my life (part one [requested classic re-post] )

by Dan Phillips

[Revisions of the manuscript, in the light of some excellent input I've gotten, continues. In this thread, I solicited suggestions for posts that readers thought worth another go. The greatest surprise to me was that (A) anyone, let alone (B) so many, really wanted to see my three-part testimony again. So now we reach back to February 13, 2007 for that (lightly-edited) word of praise to God for His grace, and encouragement for those speaking to hard-hearted, seemingly hopeless-case mockers.]

Can you name dates on which your life literally turned around, forever?

Significant dates. Pardon my duh, but the most obvious is one's birthday. That's rather a sine qua non, on a personal level. We'll just stipulate that we've all had one, and move on.

For those to whom it applies, another has to be one's wedding anniversary, and I'd certainly second that as mine [March 19] approaches. Though a lot led up to that date, for a Christian, the date itself signals changes that affect virtually every region of one's world. No longer can one think in terms of one; one must think in terms of two in finances, socializing, use of idle time, everything.

Then I'd list the day I enrolled in my first pastoral training course, the day I started learning Greek, ditto for Hebrew; the day I enrolled in Talbot, the day I graduated, the day I took my first senior pastorate (and the day I left it). A host of dates argue for inclusion.

My most important date: in pre-history.

But granted the foreordained necessity of my existence, my first pivotal date is itself undatable. It takes place in eternity past, in the counsels of the Trinity. It is that moment when the Father saw my helpless and hopeless estate, "knew" me, set His eternal love on me, and gave me to the Son for the securing of my salvation (John 17:6; Ephesians 1:4-11; 2 Timothy 1:9, etc.). At that moment, the course of my life forever was assured (Romans 8:29-30), as on the Cross it was secured (Matthew 20:28; Acts 20:28; Hebrews 9:12).

How this played out in my life is of no great global significance, though its impact in my life is literally incalculable.

Caveat: please read through to the end, or don't bother to read at all, and no hard feelings. The incomplete story will be the wrong story.

Back-story

I was born to dear, devoted parents who professed no Christian faith as I grew up. For my father, that profession had been left in his youth; for my mother, it lay in her future. (I have reason to hope that Dad literally made a deathbed return to the faith in Christ he once professed; a story for another day, perhaps.)

But I was raised without Christian witness at home. In keeping with my culture and the media I developed a growing and deepening contempt for Christianity in general, and Christians in particular. I passed through a very young atheist phase, to agnosticism, then at the start of the '70's to a pre-new-age cult known as Religious Science (or Science of Mind) in my early teens.

My cult. The message of Religious Science, founded in 1927 by Ernest Holmes, was what I wanted to hear. God was in all of us, expressed itself as all of us, demanded nothing, gave everything. There was no sin per se, and any harm we did to others, they brought on themselves by their state of mind. There was no Hell nor sin to be saved from, so no salvation to be sought, nor any Savior to be chained to nor obeyed.

"Deeper sense." Jesus was the perfect embodiment of this divine principle, but any human being could be the same as He. Christians, idiots that they always have been, hopelessly muddled the Bible in general and Jesus' teachings in particular. (Anticipating the Emergents by a good thirty years — as they were anticipated in every vaunted "innovation" — we sneered at [Biblical] Christianity as hopelessly "Western.)

We Religious Scientists reclaimed those real teachings of Jesus by seeking and finding the "deeper sense" in His words, a deeper sense — which often turned out to be the opposite of their plain sense. But that wasn't surprising. Jesus was a mystic, and men have always botched the teachings of mystics.

All of this held great theoretical promise and relief for me. I really was the center of the universe, as I'd always suspected; and my desires really were paramount. I was blamable for nothing, beholden to no one, and could have everything merely by developing my consciousness of the divine I AM within me. My own heart held the key to all; to find myself was to find God, to delve within myself was to be one with Him/Her/It.

There were only two catches in my journey.

Minor catch: Jesus. The minor "catch" in my seamless picture was Jesus. When I was about 16, I actually wrote a play based on the four Gospels, from the Religious Science perspective. I found that I kept having to "help" Jesus out, because He expressed Himself (to my mind) so poorly. Let me explain.

Jesus meant to say what we Religious Scientists said, but He kept saying it so badly!! He meant to say that Hell was unreal, not a place of God's wrath, just a phase of consciousness; and that we could save ourselves from that consciousness at any time. But He kept speaking of it as if it were an objective place of immense and eternal torment (Matthew 5;22, 29-30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:33; Mark 9:43, 43, 47). He even spoke of fearing God for His ability to throw us into this Hell (Luke 12:5). He really needed our help to clear up these muddy bits.

And Jesus seemingly kept harping on Himself, making Himself the issue, when He should have been making it clear that we're all the same, all equally manifestations of God. Jesus kept saying things such as that He would give himself as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28), pouring out His blood to secure forgiveness of their sins (Matthew 26:28). This was all wrong, to us—both the implication that sin was an objective reality, and that His death would do anything about it. He kept teaching that knowledge of the Father was dependent on personal knowledge of Him—Jesus—and calling men to Himself (Matthew 11:25-30).

John's Gospel in particular was full of such wrongheaded teaching. The worst of it, to me, was John 14:6—"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." I knew it couldn't mean what it seemed to mean... but it sure was obnoxious. Particularly because those idiot Jesus Freaks kept harping on it.

Most of us in the Science of Mind tried to "help" Jesus by explaining what He really meant when He said all these things, bringing out the "deeper meaning" of His words. I knew that the words couldn't mean what they seemed to mean. That was my story, and I stuck to it.

Until I tripped on the major catch.

Major catch: me. So (we believed) God is within all of us, and to know God, we must go within. Well, I did that. With great gusto, determination, absorption, and confidence. It was a great theory.

The problem was that what I found within was nothing like anything I'd ever want to call "God."

For the first years, I diligently applied the rationalizations explanations of Religious Science to what I found. These dissonant thoughts and attitudes were capable of many explanations. And I tried them all.

But I finally did a rigorous, unblinking, warts-and-all inventory of myself. What I found appalled me. Everything circled around me. Every relationship, every endeavor was sheerly selfish. Friends, family, things, all arrayed on a hierarchy of utility to me.

And what of that me, at the center? Selfish, bitter, moody, avaricious, lazy, arrogant, loveless. Lustful, but loveless. Dumb as a dung-beetle, on the large scale of things. Dumber.

And God? In my universe, God existed to serve me. Concocted to fulfill my demands, and customized to my desires. Created in my own image.

So, my religion was designed by me, to serve me, and rested upon me. It was from me, though me, and unto me, world without end, amen. I just found a "church" that agreed with me, confirmed my opinions, told me what I wanted to hear. But I was the foundation.

And what a foundation!

Crash. I was seventeen, and the impact of these realizations was devastating. I was undone. I was plagued by a sharp yet foglike sense of guilt, detachment, and dread. The foundation and authority for what I believed was destroyed. I was rocked to the core of my being.

What happened then?

Next time, Lord willing, I'll talk about how the minor became the major, and everything changed.

[This way to Part Two]

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