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By Paul Proctor
August 15, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
If you ask a Christian today about his or her faith, chances are they will talk about their church, their music, their pastor, their programs and all their friends there; or share with you their own thoughts, feelings and/or personal experiences on an assortment of related religious topics and issues; and maybe even their favorite contemporary Christian band, book, movie or conference; but little or nothing from the Word of God, which, if you ask me, is a pretty sad commentary on the postmodern church and why so many of us today are powerless against this wicked world and its willful ways.
In fact, thanks to all of the “expert” help and encouragement from various “Christian” consultants, commentators, psychologists and celebrities, the church has been persuaded by and large that to achieve its “divine” purpose here on Earth it needs to stir a little leaven into the loaf to help it rise to the occasion and achieve it’s full potential.
And so they give us the wisdom of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Maslow, Rogers, Jung and Freud, saying: “All truth is God’s truth.” Yes, and all lies are Satan’s Lies, which is why Jesus referred to him as the “father of lies.”
Were not all the trees in the Garden of Eden God’s trees?
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” – Proverbs 3:5
This speaks volumes about the current direction of the church, its new spirituality and the overall apathy of today’s “converts” toward God’s Word. Did the Lord, the prophets or any of the apostles ever share their own thoughts and feelings with the masses concerning the things of God? Did they ever begin a sentence with “I think,” “I feel” or “In my opinion” when addressing the ignorant, errant or unwashed about the Almighty and His Will for their lives? If they did, I have yet to find it in scripture. No, their recorded statements began with words like: “Thus saith the Lord…The Lord hath said/spoken/commanded… It is written…and “Verily I say unto you…”
In weakness, humility, sacrifice and suffering, they witnessed and proclaimed to the world around them with Authority and conviction what they saw and heard: the Power of God and His Word. They did not cunningly market themselves to the flesh or present their own thoughts, feelings, opinions, experiences and products for sale with salvation as an afterthought or bonus.
Quite a stark contrast to today’s Christian “ministry,” wouldn’t you say? They trusted the Lord for their every need, not in the marketability of their gifts, talents, innovations, intellect, influence and image. They were, for the most part, societal rejects whom the Lord raised up unto a righteousness they could not achieve, empowering them with His Holy Spirit to glorify the Lord by preaching His Word and calling on the lost to repent.
To look at the church today, one would think that faith comes by feelings and feelings by the appetites, adulation and amusement of men; but that’s not what the bible teaches, is it?
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” – Romans 10:17
In my last article, The Test of Faith, I addressed “the two Rs:” Results and Relationships, those age-old temptations that so successfully seduce us into setting aside the Word of God for self. In fact, there are many “Rs” readily available to us at the expense of Truth which are in effect components of Results and Relationships, including, but not limited to, Ratings, Reciprocation, Recognition, Reputation, Resources, Respect, Returns, Revenge, Rewards and Ritual; but in the eyes of God, are all Rebellion; an inexcusable exercise in self-esteem, i.e., pride; asserting oneself over the Sovereignty and Authority of God and His Word for the gratification and glorification of that unholy trinity we’ve come to know as “me, myself and I.”
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:9
Liberals, being infamous for their innate tendency to follow their feelings and romance evil in order to somehow find the good in it, regularly receive the wrath of conscientious conservatives, who themselves, all too often, rely on their own Reasoning skills and Rationale to persuade; but the end is still the same: death.
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” – Proverbs 16:25
Moreover, in the absence of God’s absolutes and our faithful adherence to them, a majority of Christians in and around the church today are learning to dialectically synthesize good and evil so as to find common ground with the enemies of Christ in the interest of evangelism; compromising their convictions for the sake of “unity in diversity” and calling it “love” in order to achieve a universal, be it manufactured peace and oneness with the world through “personal experience,” thereby accommodating everyone’s appetites, including their own; and satisfying as many senses as possible for fun and profit under the grand and glorious guise of “Experiencing God,” whomever yours may happen to be beneath the U.N.’s big tent of tolerance.
This is the "new spirituality" my friends; a humorous hodgepodge of humanism, happenstance, hobby and heresy, laced with just enough paraphrased scripture to give it a Christian taste. After all, who is going to hand over a fist full of cash these days for a book titled “Obeying God?” or show up for a seminar on dying to self?
“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” – 1st Corinthians 1:18
© 2005 Paul Proctor - All Rights Reserved