Humanism is Alive and Well!

I find it quite interesting that all kinds of people are trying to analyse what has gone wrong with the world, and have arrived at some very strange conclusions. They pride themselves in being clever thinkers, intelligent and shrewd, yet they consistently ‘miss the wood for the trees.’  They are so big into humanism, even of the Christian variety, that they make themselves into real fools.  They are the people who put humanism up against the Gospel, and think they are clever by so doing.  They do what humanists have always done – they exclude the supernatural from their thinking altogether, and see man as the centre of everything.  For example, when they cannot understand a thing, they reject it, why?  Because the human mind is the judge of all truth. The only thing that is true is what his mind can accept.  The mind is the controlling factor in everything.  Therefore when a preacher brings a clear Gospel message that challenges the status quo, it is roundly rejected by the humanists in the congregation.  

If "man is the measure of all things," as humanism teaches, then we are in the deepest black hole of meaninglessness imaginable.  There is simply no hope!  If "the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart," then there is no solution to this chronic problem.  There is nothing but darkness, a "darkness that can be felt," as was the case in Egypt before the Hebrews were delivered under God's mighty hand.  

But.and here's the really good news: while "the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart," then a solution has been provided by the very God Whose existence the humanists deny!  To look to the problem for a solution to that problem is the measure of humanist thinking, if indeed it can be described as thinking at all, then dear help us! If there is no supernatural solution to the problems of mankind, then we're undone!  

But there is such a solution!  The sad thing is that no one within officialdom will even look 'outside' of man for the solutions that men crave.  Government agencies focus in on man solutions, and refuse to go down God's way.  Take Social services as an example.  Families in the profoundest imaginable messes and who are under the case of social services find themselves at a total loss to know what remedy to apply to these problems.  They have tried all the human remedies that have, but the situation goes from bad to worse.  Senior social workers are appointed, at considerable cost, to try to get a remedy to the situation, but all they can offer is another man-made solution.

There are situations where the biggest obstacle to turning to Gospel remedies is moral.   Sufferers prefer their sin to the Saviour from sin.  Sin is a destructive agent that is not their friend,even though they think it is.  They cuddle and nurture their chosen sin,therefore they will not depart from it.  Their sinful lifestyle is so closely identified with them as to be inseparable from them - as they think.  They love their sin, but they hate the only Saviour from sin. 

The only remedy that government agencies deliberately refuse to countenance is also the only remedy that will work - the Gospel. What is man's basic problem?  His rebellion against the God Who made him and ho will one day be His judge.  His problem is his disobedience against the will of God as revealed in the Bible.  His problem is pride as seen in his refusal to come to Christ and seek His deliverance.

But this old despised Gospel still has the power of God to transform and situations.  people have tried everything else; why not embrace the Gospel and see what God can do in a surrendered life!

In Praise of Compromise!

It still amazes me that there are ministers who imagine that by tolerating theological liberalism within their churches, they are being faithful to the Gospel.  Their toleration is somewhat banal because they claim that they are the men who have kept to the church's understanding of the Christian Gospel, and that it is the liberals who have departed from it. 

If that is genuinely the case, and not just an ecclesiastical bluff aimed at maintaining their own jobs, why does their faithfulness to the Gospel not drive them to expel those who hold deviant views of that Gospel?  What is preventing them doing this?  Is it that they are not altogether convinced that their understanding of the Gospel is true to Scripture?  Are they ashamed of the Gospel?  Is maintaining the church intact more important than standing up for the everlasting Gospel?  Is ensuring their positions within the denomination the driving foirce behind all they do?

I think ministers who hold to this view are obligated to give an explanation for their current stance!  Have they an answer at all?  Is it coherent?  Will it stand up to the test of Scripture?

Or is their confession of the true Christian faith just a facade?  I remember, as a member of a very doctrinally mixed denomination, pleading for the reform group within that church to take on and remove the disease of theological liberalism that was endemic within that church.  I was shot down in flames by leading evangelical minsters.  Why was this position taken?  because it was much more important to show that you are a "good churchman" than that you are a convinced and consistent evangelical!  This was the driving force that stopped my proposal being taken up.  Being a "good churchman."

But what is that?  It is to be first and foremost a "good Gospel man."  No one can be a good churchman who is not primarily a good Gospel man.  To believe otherwise is to believe a figment of an overactive religious imagination.

But until evangelicals become strong in their theological convictions and are actively involved in purifying the church, the Bride of Christ, the spiritual situation within those churches can only go from very bad to deplorable.  Until the Gospel is seen to be working within the churches, it will be seen to be an irrelevance.  Perhaps that's why so many are outside the visible church today!  To them, the Gospel is irrelevant, meaningless, and religious game.  And not only do they see it that way, so do the ministers, and so also does the church herself.  There is death in the Body, but no one cares  the church is suffering from a serious heart disease, but who cares!  The Bride of Christ is knowingly filthy, but she's not our Bride, so why bother!  If He tolerates that situation, they argue, why shouldn't we? 

Then they wonder why there is so much deadness within her ranks!  They ask why there is so little blessing in the church today!

But ought they?

Christian Life and Prayer

P. T. Forsyth said:

Some say you have to maintain your prayer life in order to live the Christian life; I say, you have to maintain your Christian life in order to pray.

Sin Not Serious

Leonard Ravenhill said:

Preachers have failed to make sin diabolical, we've failed to make sin offensive, and we've failed to make Christ attractive.

The biggest hindrance to revival ... is evangelism.

Is it also true to say that the biggest hindrance to the blessing of God in the churches is the spiritual paucity of our prayer meetings?

Christ is not returning to take His Bride because she is filthy.

Challenging Thoughts.

Leonard Ravenhill said that no man is better than his prayer life!

He also said that we have substituted joy in worship for entertainment.

We've lost the sense of the majesty of God.

Why go and preach a revival when your own church is dead?

People in the church today want to be good, but they don't want to be holy!

What's Wrong NOW?

Have you ever wondered why Gospel ministers in the 'Christian' denominations that have departed from the faith "once and for all delivered to the saints" have been able to survive?  Has the thought ever struck you why churches that have embraced theological liberalism as a legitimate understanding of the Christian Gospel and its offspring, unbiblical ecumenism, have been able to 'stay in' their churches?

One just has to read the history of the reformers in England, the Huguenots in France, the Covenanters in Scotland, and the Puritans in England, etc, to understand, before too many pages of this sacred history are read, why these men have been burned at the stake, persecuted for their faith, tortured and exiled: it was because they consistently put Gospel before Church - and the church authorities simply did not like it.  To these high-minded individuals, to place anything before them and their authority is inconvenient (to put it mildly).  Anything that challenges their ecclesiastical authority cannot be tolerated. 

Why did Bishop John Hopper cherish the Gospel before the church?  Because he loved Christ more than the church - a very inadvisable thing to do in today's decadent church.  Why was Bishop Hugh Latimer burned at the stake?  Because he loved Christ and His Gospel more than he loved the church.  Why was Bishop Nicholas Ridley reduced to ashes in England's evil soil?  Because he obeyed the Gospel before he obeyed the church.

Yes, the church was corrupt in the 15th and 16th centuries; but so is the church today.  The church was unfaithful to her sole King and head then; but she is most unfaithful to Him today.  The Reformers saw their faithfulness to the gospel as a matter of life and death; but minsters do not so see it thus today.  For most of them, the priority is to keep a clean copy book so far as the church is concerned even if this means 'changing' the Gospel message to suit the situation.  Whatever the church says and teaches is the last word on matters religious, theological , ecclesiastical and spiritual.  If the church imagines herself to be the nearest thing to perfect in this world, then ministers must see it in that way, too; and woe betide the minister who says otherwise!  If the church sees herself as being faithful to the Scriptures, then ministers must agree with this assessment.  If the church is prepared to be dishonest, her ministers must cover-up such dishonesty, if they are to remain within her ranks.  If the church agrees to break the rules it has set for its ministers to keep, and then punishes a minister for not going down that road, then he is ejected from his pulpit.  This has happened in a few cases in Northern Ireland, but given the lack of true spirituality within the church's ranks, it is utterly amazing how many more have not been made to 'walk the plank' too.

Or is it?  What if these ministers all agree in consort to relegate the Gospel to a secondary place - at best - and to decide to "do what the church wants you to do and to say what the church wants you to say," then you have a job for life.  But that is precisely what it has been reduced to - a job.  No longer is it a divine calling that has to be lived out; it is now your career, your profession.  And you have to watch your career! At all costs!

Given that this seems to be the mentality residing in the minds of many ministers, including reformed evangelical minsters, it should not surprise anyone that liberal and ecumenical churches have not ejected many of these ministers from their ranks.  These men 'play the game,' the religious and church game.

Yet some of them walk behind banners that display the faith of men like Latimer and Ridley depicting them tied to the stake and the flames of death rising up around them.  They like to see cloth pictures of Daniel in the lion's den, and glory in what this teaches us.  But they will never place themselves at variance with what their church expects of them, not even their stand for the Gospel.  They can work harmoniously with theological liberals - alias deniers of the faith - yet pretend that they stand for Gospel principles.  They play the church game with faith deniers, in order to retain their pulpits and manses and salaries and pensions.  They compromise the Gospel daily, but have convinced themselves that they are true to it! And they do this by believing that it is the theological liberals who have compromised and denied the Gospel.  As evangelicals, they have been true to it at all times, and cautiously criticise those who deny it.  If the liberals have denied the Gospel, why have these defenders of the Gospel tolerated their continued presence within their churches?

But the Gospel? What Gospel?

USA Preaching Tour 2013

I know that many of my readers are from the USA, and I was wondering if there was a possibility of arranging a series of preaching meetings for me in 2013.  My heart's desire is to proclaim the glorious Gospel to all and sundry, and to do so with "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," as Paul puts it.  There is great need today for an authentic voice within the churches, and an authentic message that will grip sinner's hearts, and draw them to the only Saviour of the world.

I know that many in the USA appreciate these postings, and to have an opportunity to preach to live congregations would be an inestimable privilege.

Coming as I do from terrorist-stricken Northern Ireland, and being under death threat from republican terorists, I have proved the grace of God in numerous ways.  This Gospel works, because it is the Gospel of God (Rom.1:1).

Speak this over with your minister or with other ministers, and see what comes of it.  I am willing, if you are!