MARKS OF AN EVANGELICAL

The following things may be said to be marks of an evangelical.  I do not subscribe to the point of view which describes people as ‘evangelical Christians,’ because there is no other kind of Christian but an evangelical one.  The two terms are co-terminus.

An evangelical is concerned above all else to promote the glory of God in Christ.  What he believes, how he worships God, his life – these all seek to further God’s glory.

An evangelical is anxious to preserve the gospel of Christ for future generations.  This is the only message the world needs to hear, so it has to be preserved at all costs. 

An evangelical takes the lessons from history with great seriousness.  Ignorance of history probably accounts for more errors in the church than anything else. 

An evangelical is not only interested in preaching a positive message, but will also preach the great negatives of the biblical faith.  A battery with only one pole is quite useless to start your car; so a message that is only positive lacks the power it needs to effect anything for God’s glory or man’s good.  He is not afraid of the great negatives of the Bible, or that may be reasonably derived from its teaching.

An evangelical will neither add anything to Scripture, nor will he subtract anything from it.  He will not do this by avoiding in Scripture what does not fit in with his own prejudices.  Nor will he see himself primarily as a denominational man, but as an evangelical first and foremost.

He will be vigilant about the Gospel and about the various trends that come and go, and will not allow himself to be derailed by these fads and fashions.  As one of God’s watchmen, he will sound a clear alarm at the first approach of attack on our like precious faith.  Not only does he distrust reason as the final arbiter in disputes or in the formulation of doctrine, he uses his reason in his bid to come to terms with the teaching of the Bible.  He approaches his ministry in a scholarly manner, but he does not see scholarship as the ultimate authority in matters of religion and theology.  He applies his God-given intellect to think his way through the various offers that present themselves, usually in the name of scholarship, but he is not afraid of the scholars or their views. 

The true evangelical is the man who preaches the great salvific doctrines of the Bible with a passion that is contagious.  He knows the urgency of the times, and the uncertainty of another day of grace.  He shows his hearers their lost and helpless condition without Christ and urges them to trust in Christ alone for eternal salvation.  He emphasises the need for the new birth, and presses upon sinners the indispensability of the death of Christ for salvation. 

The evangelical, then, is different from other ‘theological’ people in that he, and he alone, takes biblical revelation with utmost seriousness.  It is he, and he alone, who seeks to bring glory to the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And it is he, and he alone, that is genuinely concerned about the salvation of the world.  Soli Deo Gloria

What is an EVANGELICAL?

Some pointers as to what an evangelical is, is the concern of this post.  I have said frequently that this is the age in which defining anything is frowned upon, not only because even the experts are unable to find a definition of something that is inclusive enough to draw support from as wide a grouping as possible, but also because definition by default excludes whatever does not fit in with the definition.

The great fad today is to get as many people as possible on board for a particular cause, and have a broad a base as possible so that we can get the numbers, and then people will sit up and listen. But, this can only be done on the basis of arriving at the lowest common denominator to that particular target group. 

It is something like this that has happened to the precious term, ‘evangelical.’  I say ‘happened;’ that is not strictly correct.  This is something that has been ‘done’ to the term, ‘done’ by choice, by deliberation, as the outworking of a particular strategy, and fore a particular purpose.  That purpose is now clearly discernible, as can be seen in the professing evangelical churches.

What has happened in this: away back in the 19^th century, certain German universities began peddling the idea of ‘higher criticism’ of the Bible.  This was really an attempt to de-God the Bible and to remove everything supernatural, the miraculous, and that which did not accord with human reason. Everything in the Bible had to have a reasonable explanation; it had to have a rational vindication, because clever, thinking people were no longer prepared to accept the old understanding of the miraculous stories which we were taught in Sunday School.  This ‘higher critical’ school of biblical studies was most successful, and many were swept away by it, and numerous ministers lost their faith altogether.

In English Baptist circles, the great preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, voiced his opposition the liberalism that spawned the ‘higher criticism’ school, and was rounded condemned by his evangelical colleagues - Spurgeon’s stand has proved to have been the correct one, and his denomination has suffered almost irreparable damage when it succumbed to theological liberalism.

Then, theological liberals began to latch on to the term, evangelical,’ and threw their weight in behind it.  In fact, the theology of German theologian, Karl Barth (1886-1968), who was the leader of a movement known as Neo-Orthodoxy, and presented what was thought to be a new evangelicalism.  The basis on which this flawed conclusion was reached was Barth’s trenchant criticism of theological liberalism.  Uncritical evangelicals, even within scholarly circles, were unable or unwilling to discern what was happening, and so gave this movement a warm welcome. 

So what this is saying to us is that an evangelical is someone who believes the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired, authoritative, inerrant and infallible Word of God.  It is the revelation of God to sinful mankind in written form.  This Word is to be obeyed and submitted to willingly and constantly.  It is the supreme and only authoritative standard for faith and practice in the church of Christ, all else being woefully inferior to that.

From this flows the fact of the virgin birth of the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, His holy life, His atoning death for the sin of the world, His burial, His triumphant and bodily resurrection from the dead on the third day, and His ascension into heaven, where He sits at the Father’s right hand.  His return to this world to wind up history and to usher in the Final Judgement, of which He has been appointed Judge.  An evangelical believes that God has acted in history in Christ to redeem sinners to Himself, and that by faith in Christ alone may a man be saved.

An evangelical minister, then, believes and preaches the whole counsel of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and assesses everything else against this infallible standard.  He is a Gospel man through and through.  The Gospel not only gave him life, but is his very life.  It is the indispensible message of salvation that the entire world needs to hear and believe. 

These are some of the essentials that define an evangelical.  In fact, these are ‘essentials’ in any definition of an evangelical, others things being secondary.

GOD’S JUDGEMENT DAY

By Oswald J. Smyth, LL.D.             

The Great White Throne is set.   The Judge is seated.  Angels and archangels are in attendance.  All heaven assembles.  Unnumbered millions, in breathless wonder, survey the fearful scene.  With awe on every face, they wait.  Time’s final drama is to be enacted.  Nothing else matters now.  Everything of a secondary nature has been forgotten.  ‘Tis God Almighty’s Judgement day.

Presently, amid the awful silence, the Dead appear; sinners great and small, from every clime and race, sinners of the deepest dye; murderers, sorcerers, liars, thieves, idolaters, adulterers, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, infidels, atheists, agnostics, and criminals of the blackest type, along with those who have neglected and  forgotten God.

From the world’s great battlefields where their dust has lain for hundreds of years, they come; from ocean depths where ships were sunk long centuries ago; from graveyards innumerable, long since forgotten, they come.  Oh, what a company!  And how they keep coming, millions upon millions of them, once the men and women of the earth – summoned to appear before the God whom they have ignored and despised, to render an account.  They glance this way and that, looking for a means of escape.  They call for the mountains to fall on them, and hide them from Him that sitteth upon the Throne.  But there is no escape, no help.  It is the day of their doom.

And the books are opened, the books filled with the record of their earthly lives.  Very sin is recorded, every transgression entered, every failure and neglected opportunity written down.  Deeds long since forgotten, vile things carefully hidden from the eye of man, all, yea, all are now revealed, and the universe listens to the awful revelation.  Aghast they stand, terror-stricken they wait; dumb they hear.  Finally, the Book of Life is brought.  “And whosoever was not found written in the book of Life was cast into the lake of fire,” (Rev.20:15).  It is not now a question of the depth of their sin; for all alike are guilty.  Only one enquiry, only one thought:

                                                                 “Is my name written there

                                                                 On the page white and fair,

                                                                 In the Book of Thy Kingdom –

                                                                 Is my name written there?”

In vain they search, in vain they scan its pages!  Their last chance is gone, their final hope extinguished.

                                                                 “And oh, what a weeping and wailing,

                                                                 As the lost were told of their fate;

                                                                 They cried for the rocks and the mountains,

                                                                 They prayed, but their prayer was too late.”

My friend, will you be there?  Are you still unsaved, and yet unmoved?  And if so, will you not be warned today, now, before it is forever too late?  Do you not know that you will be judged?  God’s Word is very plain.  It says, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God,” (Rom.14:12).  No one else can appear in your place, nor will you be judged for the sins of another.  You must answer for yourself.  And unless you are saved, you will certainly be present.   

How will you be judged?  On the basis of your attitude towards Christ.  Not morality or religion, but relationship to God’s Son.  “He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God,” (John 3:18).  Only one question, therefore: “what did you do with Jesus Christ?”  “Well,” you reply, “I was a faithful church member, and lived a good life.”  That is not the issue.  Did you accept Jesus Christ as your saviour? That is the acid test.  “He that believeth shall not be damned.”

Who will be your Judge?  Jesus Christ Himself, the One who longs to be your Saviour.  Listen to the Word once more: “For the father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the Son,” (John 5:22).

A criminal was about to be run over by a car when a man sprang out and saved him.  Later on he stood in the prisoner’s box, charged with a great crime.  The judge was the man who had saved him from the car.  The criminal appealed to him, expecting that he would do for him again what he had done before.  “That day,” explained the judge, “I was your Saviour; today I am your judge.”  And he was sentenced.

Some day – God grant it may be now – you will own Jesus Christ as Lord of lords and King of kings.  Will it be now or then?  Now of your own free will, or then by compulsion?  Will you have Him now as a Saviour, or then as a Judge?  It must be one or the other.  Which is it to be?  My friend, I bid you accept Him, and accept Him – NOW.]

-oOo=========oOo-

This was taken from a Gospel tract written by Dr Oswald J. Smyth, and published by every Home Crusade, Northern Ireland.

21st Century Gospel Preaching

It is so very important that, in today’s anaemic church, a preacher is known as an evangelical.   It is the in thing to be especially in theologically mixed denominations.  The idea that these denominations are becoming more evangelical and that there are now more evangelicals in the ministry is a cause of great pride in these churches.  And if this were really the case, then the church on earth would be triumphant in its thanksgiving to God for calling such men into its ministry.

But while numerically this is the case in some denominations, the sad reality is that the churches in which they minister have seen no improvement in her spiritual life as a result.  It was very disturbing to hear a retired evangelical minister in one of the mainline denominations admit this to me in the Summer of 2011.  Many more evangelical ministers, but no improvement in church life!

Now if that does not beg an obvious question, I do not know what will!  Why does an increase in evangelicals into the ministry not make any difference?  Well, it is all down to what you believe an evangelical is!  Perhaps the reason is that the church today does not know what an evangelical is!  She can longer define an ‘evangelical’!

It is true that there is an intolerance to defining anything today.  The church has done what the world has propagated – or maybe the world is merely imitating what the church did from the mid 1800s – and that is, she has re-written biblical history and theology to fit in with the modern way of thinking; and this has been imbibed by those who call themselves evangelicals!  If ‘grace’ is something so wonderful, so sublime, so out of this world, that it defies definition, then don’t define it; and if someone else uses this term, the just accept it, asking no questions.  If ‘love’ is such a warm thing to talk about, then talk about it and don’t define it; then if someone else talks about ove, then just accept that he means the same by it as you do, and ask no questions.

If the Gospel is the most wonderful thing in the world, and if a man says he preaches the Gospel, and if his congregation thinks he preaches the Gospel, and if non-evangelicals, liberals, ecumenicals, use this precious term, then that’s good.  Just accept them as fellow-believers and ask no awkward or embarrassing questions.

So in preaching, especially if you are in a denomination that does not know the difference between truth and error, or who is a Christian and who is not, or even what a Christian is and is not, then proceed as if everyone who attends your church is a Christian, but throw in a few Gospel ideas just to keep the unthinking professing evangelicals on side. 

But don’t be too pointed in your preaching!  This could be very costly to you personally.  You don’t want your congregation to even suspect that you do not think some of them are Christians at all.  And you certainly do not want the church eldership to get the impression that you think this.  So keep your preaching very low-key, not too pointed, and no application.  You don’t want your members, who have professed their faith in Jesus Christ and who have been accepted as true Christians by the eldership, to start being converted, do you?  You don’t people to start being saved in your church because that will be to question and challenge the judgement of the elders.  And you can’t have that! 

In a future post, I will seek to delineate what it is that constitutes an evangelical, just so that there is not confusion about this precious term.

Why Do Evangelicals in Liberal Denominations Make No Difference?

What a question?  The very thought that evangelicals make no difference to the life of the church is preposterous.  That they are described as ‘salt’ and ‘light’ by our Lord is a fact.  But that they are not working as ‘salt’ and ‘light’ is also a fact.  The ‘salt’ has lost is savour, and has become useless; and the ‘light’ has been put ‘under a bushel’ therefore does not give light to anyone (Mt.5).  Saltless salt is not only useless, it is positively dangerous, because it prevents growth.  And if the light that is in you id darkness, how great is that darkness?

In today’s insipid church, there is abundant evidence around that this is exactly what has happened.  The preachers have no message – Bible studies, Bible explanations, Bible teaching, but no message.  If I were to ask you what the message was from the preacher you listened to today, could you give the main points of it?  Did it stir you to response?  Did it challenge you?  Did it hit you very deeply?  Has it changed the way you think about God, Christ, the Gospel, the Church, or has it left you ‘just as you are’?

I think it can be demonstrated that the church today is not proclaiming a ‘word from the Lord’ to its needy environment, the world.  Look at the state of the world in which she lives.  Every man does that which is right in his own eyes.  God is not speaking into today’s world, or even into His church.  There is no message!  There is no revelation.  There is no communication from God.  And the people are left not knowing how they ought to live and behave themselves.   Anything goes!  Do what you like!  Do what everyone else is doing!  Live for pleasure and enjoyment, and forget the consequences. 

Where there is no revelation, no word from God, what happens, what is the inevitable result?  The people cast off restraint.  They do whatever takes their fancy.  They are left rudderless in the storms of life.   They do not know where the spiritual ‘true north’ is to be found.

Even within the life of the modern church, the same may be discerned.  Anything goes within the church today.  There is precious little difference between the world and the church today.  Drop into any so-called evangelical church in the west today, and you will find it imitating the world in which it lives.  Look at the lifestyles of any evangelical, and you see that their Christian faith is just an add-on to an already busy life.  Even in the matter of dress, we see the same thing.  Listen to them pray, if they even do, and you will find that God is no, longer their fiend, but their pal!  And God is not anyone’s pal!  These people have degraded Him to the level of the guy you chum around with! 

No, evangelicals are not having any effect within their churches today, because the teaching of Matt.5 is being displayed for all to see.  There is no ‘salt’ or ‘light’ in the ministry.  Christians are not being ‘salt’ and ‘light’ in society, in the home, or at work.  That explains why they can hold down their jobs for decades – they are no threat to the world, not preserving what is good and disinfecting what is bad.  They are not shining the light of God’s truth and law into situations of corruption, not challenging bad language or filthy talk, not being Christ-like where He has placed them.

That’s part of the reason why evangelicals in today’s churches are having no impact for the Gospel or for good.  They need to examine, in the light of Judgement Day, what it is they are really doing. 

Where are the Preachers for this Hour?

That the churches today have got plenty of speakers is not in question.  Not a service passes every Sunday but there is a speaker mounting the pulpits of our land.  There  are loads of speakers; but is there ‘a word from the Lord’?

There are many preachers in the various churches, standing up to preach to the congregations that have called them. But what are they preaching?  Are they bringing a ‘word from the Lord’? 

Is there anyone out there who waits upon God?  Is anyone listening to God?  Is there a preacher today who is spending time with God, and attuning his heart to the mind and will of God?  No preacher can hope to receive a message from God who does not spend time listening to Him.  And where does God speak?  In the Scriptures.

Now, it is precisely here where the problem arises.  Ministers of the gospel seem to think that all they have to do is to conduct an exegesis of a passage, bring out the original meaning of the passage, and then share that with his people; he concludes that that is s sermon.  But it is anything but!  It might be a commentary on a few verses of text, but it is not yet a sermon.   A sermon is what a minister of the Word has when/after he has listened to God speaking to his own heart in the Scriptures, and which is then delivered to the congregation. 

Now, a sermon, a message from God to the people, is a dynamic thing; it is throbbing with spiritual life.  It is something that must first come to life in the heart of the preacher.   It first warms his heart.  It impacts on the preacher before it can impact on the congregation.  If it doesn’t, then all the preacher has to give is a (hopefully) well-constructed is the equivalent of ‘cold tea.’  It is therefore delivered without passion, without warmth, without feeling, and without conviction.  You just have to listen to a preacher to discover whether or not he has been with God and had spent time listening to Him.  How many sermons have you listened to that have left you utterly cold!  Too many, I presume. 

But only a minister who has been with God (see Ac.4:13) had any right or warrant to be with people.  Only a preacher who has first listened to what God has said to him through the Scriptures has any right to stand in a pulpit and speak to people.  And he is then under a divine compulsion to say what God has said to him, nothing more, and nothing less.  He must listen to God, and then, as His ambassador, bring His message to the people, no matter how uncomfortable that message might be.  He only can warm the hearts of the people who has first had his heart warmed at the fires of God’s love and grace.  And the only preacher who can speak with the authority of God is the one who has submitted himself to that authority in the Word.  

Today, we have a load of preachers who have no authority in their preaching or for their preaching.  Their sermons are not ‘cutting it’ in today’s decadent society and church.  They do not address the sins of the present age.  Corruption and compromise go on without challenge.  Loose living is tolerated, and hypocrisy is not confronted.  Church members can live without in the least sense of dedication to Christ and His Gospel.http://thebible-online.com/  Indeed, the calling to ‘dedication’ has been lost from the Christian vocabulary.  There is too much contentment with ‘shades of mediocrity.’ 

Yes, many ministers have more than one university degree, and some have two or more.  But what does that matter; how relevant is that achievement to the work of the minister.  I know of a minister who was interviewed recently for the post of Evangelist and his interviewers mentioned the number of degrees he possessed; the interviewee’s response was that these are irrelevant.   And they are! Degrees from the world’s institutions are no substitute for being ‘with Jesus.’  It is this that differentiates the man of the world from the man of God.  And it is this man who brings the Lord’s message to a lost and dying world.

Do Intelligent People Attend Church?

What a question to ask!  100 years ago in the UK, there was the idea that intelligent people did not believe the Christian faith.   Twentieth century people were much too well read and educated, too clever and intelligent, to be interested in an old religion.  They had no concern about what could not be seen or proven in a laboratory.  So, the argument went, intelligent people were just not religious.  The fact that this does not concur with the evidence, does not seem to bother those who are blinded by their own prejudice.

But today, despite the fact that many ministers possess several university degrees, there is an inability on their part to give their people anything that even smells of something adequate.  A friend of mine, in a conversation we had many years ago, said that even though many of our colleagues had two or more university degrees (including degrees in theology), he could not have the theological discussion that he and I could have. 

The feeling seems to be that secular education is depriving ministers of the wherewithal to produce sermons of excellence upon which to feed their people.  It used to be said that men who started off as good preachers were killed by degrees.  There just might be more than a grain of truth in this viewpoint.  A good education is essential to a serious ministry, but so often this is made a substitute for devotion to Christ and His Gospel. 

Just as consumers will not go back to an eating establishment that does not deliver good meals of appropriate standard, so Christian, or non-Christian, people are under no obligation to insult their intelligence by attending churches that cannot feed them.  Would you return for another meal in a poor restaurant?  Then don’t expect any intelligent person to attend a church where the ministry is woeful, to put it mildly.  And church officers must desist from their blind loyalty to a church that is starving them of ‘food convenient’ for their souls.  Too many are prepared to ‘hang in there’ for the sake of tradition, or worse, pride and the fear of losing face.