The Stench Of Moral Decay

There are times when I just feel the sadness and frustration of watching America's slide into depravity more than others. Tonight is one of those times. I look at the corruption that is so rampant and I see the perversion that is so prevalent and all the while more and more of the society is trying to marginalize those who stand for truth, and I frankly begin to welcome the judgment of the Lord.

It has taken much to get me to this point, because I know that the "Day of the Lord" is a dreadful thing. I know that many lives will be lost - and many souls will be as well. What could be more dreadful than that? It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of a righteous God. I am reminded of the words from Jonathan Edwards' sermon:

It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one second; but you must suffer it for all of eternity. There will be no end to this extreme horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains.

My God, what a dreadful end!

I think that the only way that I can even hope to stomach such a thing is knowing that God is patient and that when He chooses the time to unleash His judgments against a people that it is the perfect time to do so. The people will have earned His wrath in full, and they will be beyond hope of repentance. (Well, I would also add that I do have hope, knowing that judgment will remove the stumbling blocks from our nation and will bring the purification of our land once again.)

Still, it saddens me to see what seems like the entire world running as hard as it can run to utter destruction. Yet this is the very picture painted by the Scriptures. Why am I surprised? I guess it is partly because it is so foolish and unnecessary. And perhaps I am also shocked by how evil men's hearts really can be. I have always been a little naive.

Today I read about Russian warships doing joint exercises with the Venezuelan navy and visiting Cuba. The government and Pentagon seemed very unconcerned. This seems very foolish and arrogant to me. The Russians would have never pulled such a stunt when Reagan was in office, and we would have never taken it so lightly either. Hubris is a dangerous sin.

I also read about the arson of Sarah Palin's church, and of the numerous frivolous lawsuits being brought against her to discourage her from ever even THINKING about running for office again. God help her!

Then I read about the corruption in Governor Blagojevich's administration and saw the connections between him and Jesse Jackson Jr. I read about how Blagojevich will likely be impeached because he refuses to resign - after being arrested on federal felony charges. (Is anyone else puzzled by this? What, does he think he can pardon himself?)

Finally I read about the Newsweek article that tried to make it sound as if the Bible and Jesus endorse homosexual marriage, and also about a "leader" in the evangelical movement that said that such unions should be allowed.

This is why I rarely read the news anymore. And this is why I take hope in judgment when it comes... but how I dread it.

Contrary to popular belief it is not hateful to tell a person that they are headed towards destruction. It is one of the greatest demonstrations of love that a person can give. This is especially true when that warning is coupled with the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But how many know the true Gospel? How many churches actually teach it? How many know that our right standing does not come because of anything that we do or don't do, but it comes as a result of God's grace through faith in the sacrifice that Jesus made for us through His death on the cross and through His resurrection?

How many teach that grace demands obedience to Jesus? Is belief truly belief without corresponding obedience? Can a person walk in his own way if he has truly been converted? True grace inspires obedience. True grace is based on a walk with the Spirit of God and living life based on His laws being written on a person's heart. True grace leads us to sin less - not more. As the Apostle John wrote, a person who claims to be walking with God yet walks in sin is a liar and the truth of God does not dwell in him.

Salvation is not a "get out of hell free" card. Salvation is the trading of masters. You are either a slave to the devil or you are a slave to Christ. There is no middle ground. If you are a slave to Christ you should be seeing a dissipation of the sins of the flesh and conviction about the ones that remain. If there is no difference in your life before you were "saved" and after, perhaps you had best re-examine your conversion. It sounds like you are still a slave to the devil.

Yes, it is true that God is love, but He is also jealous, just, holy, righteous, pure, patient, merciful, vengeful... the list goes on. If we focus on only one of His attributes, we put ourselves in grave danger of error - error that has not only temporal but also eternal consequences.

Interesting Quote

I read this today in an editorial by Brian Fitzpatrick:

Evangelical theology teaches that a person is saved based not on how he votes, or any other action, but on whether he places his trust in Jesus’s sacrifice to pay the price for his sins. Trust Christ today and you’re “saved” today. Therefore, salvation is not so much a future event as a present possession. Once people are “saved,” however, they undergo a spiritual transformation that affects the way they think, behave, and vote.

Exactly. This is why I am astounded when people who claim to have experienced such a spiritual transformation can enthusiastically support any candidate who is in favor of abortion, infanticide, or the redefinition of marriage. I am similarly shocked that anyone with this claim can support any of these policies.

The Bible has much to say about God's standard of right and wrong. It talks about the things that God hates. It talks about the way that He created things to be. It talks about God's nature and what He is like.

It is interesting that God through the Bible does not explicitly deal with these issues. However, He does give us some very strong principles that logically bring us to certain conclusions.

God shows us many examples of marriage - including the very first one. He is very explicit about the sexual relationships that He endorses and condemns. And none of these boundaries are ever revoked in the Bible.

Similarly, it is very clear from the scriptures that God is intimately involved in life even from the womb. It is also clear from the Bible that God hates those who harm children, the helpless, and the innocent.

So I have a real disconnect when someone who claims to be saved can support either of these issues. I have read through the Bible many times, and I can only think of one very weak argument that would support abortion and none that support the redefinition of marriage.

The only way that I can conceive that a person could logically come to the conclusion that these things are alright would be for them to be operating from a different base of moral authority than the Bible. If the Bible is the ultimate authority for morality, I don't see any way to justify these things. Anyone is welcome to try to convince me otherwise. (But I can assure you that if you aren't using a holistic view of scripture you will fail.)

Are You Saved?

I just watched an excellent sermon which I have embedded below. The main question that it asks is "Are you saved?" And then it gives an excellent, biblical way to tell. The video lasts about 48 minutes. It will take a while to watch it, but I thoroughly recommend it even if you are pretty certain that you are.



If Billy Graham believes that probably less than 5% of the people who came forward at one of his crusades really got saved, then perhaps it would be worth your time to set aside an hour and ask yourself some penetrating questions.

A Body Smile

I just watched an incredible testimony of a fellow that had been hooked on meth over at Chris Elrod's blog. One of my favorite parts came when he described the feeling of being born again as being like a body smile. You have to check it out.

Barna Survey Results...

Thanks to Bill Reichart over at Provocative Church who reported about a new survey completed by George Barna's organization.

Here's an excerpt from the report:

"People were more than 50% more likely to say that their church’s congregation is their most significant group than to say that God represents their most important personal connection. That certainly reflects the interpersonal comfort that millions of people have developed at their church, but also indicates that people may have forgotten the ultimate reason for belonging to a Christian church."

The author of more than three-dozen books about faith, culture and lifestyles also noted that most Americans - even a large majority of born again Christians - struggle to think of God as a living partner in their life. "There’s an intellectual and even theological assent to the notion that God is real, He’s alive, He influences their life, and that they owe their eternal security to Him," Barna commented. "But when you get people at ease, rather than in a religious setting or in a theological context, and explore the relationships that define and direct their life, the born again public does not seem to share much intimacy with God. Perhaps one of the greatest gifts Christians could get this Easter is a deeper or renewed sense of connection with God, and a passionate determination to make more of the opportunity they have to know and be known by the living God." (emphases mine)

These are some disturbing and intriguing results. As I stopped to consider how I would have answered that survey, I really wasn't sure. I guess a lot would depend on how the questions were worded. If I thought that God was included in the group that the questioner was asking about, I think that I would have probably pointed to Him as my most vital relationship, but I also think that it would be easy to separate God from consideration in the question.

Personally, there probably isn't anyone that I talk to more than God. I'm really not bragging (trust me, I have no room to brag), but I have found that I have a constant stream headed His direction.

I remember one time I was angry at God and had determined that I wasn't going to talk to Him. Then I caught myself blathering on and on just like always. My mad self reminded my talkative self that we weren't talking to God, to which my talkative self replied, "Says you!"

Still, I understand the disconnect that many born-again, evangelical Christians experience. So often that conversation seems one-sided. So often our experience as born-again evangelicals is vastly different from the experiences of those that we read about in the Bible. Where is the power that we are supposed to have? Why aren't we changing the world? Why does it so often seem like when we pray we are talking to ourselves? WHY DO WE LOOK SO MUCH LIKE THE WORLD?

Oh boy. I'm afraid that the answers to those questions probably won't fit into one sentence - probably not even one blog post... written by someone really clever, who is really in touch with God, and has figured out that whole "walking on water" thing. (Er, in case you were wondering, that's NOT me.)

But where do we start to unravel this puzzle? Perhaps Barna's comment is a good starting place: "the born again public does not seem to share much intimacy with God."

Intimacy with God. That's a tough one. I have been a Christian for 20 years this month (happy birthday to me!) and I have yet to achieve a lasting, utterly fulfilling, truly deep CONSISTENT AND ENDURING friendship with God. I have had moments of it, caught the briefest fragrance of it during different seasons, but it is something that has eluded me. How does someone become a friend of God? How do you achieve that place of deepest intimacy where God speaks with you face to face as He did with Moses and Abraham?

Certainly it must involve spending time with God in prayer and in Bible study. That seems assured, but there are people who do these things religiously and are no more intimate with God than I am with the wife that I don't have. (The Pharisees of Jesus' time come to mind.) There must be more to it than that.

Of course, I have also experienced God by doing acts of charity and evangelism. This also seems a reasonable course, but then again there are many altruistic folks out there who are not in any kind of relationship with God and many evangelistic practitioners that don't seem to have a particular depth of relationship with God.

Perhaps another factor in this whole problem is our culture's addiction to entertainment, materialism, and hedonism. These things seem to cause more distraction than benefit. How many church folks wouldn't dream of missing the ACC basketball tournament, and wouldn't think twice about missing church to go? How many Christians allow work to become so all-consuming that they sacrifice prayer time or devotional or even family time to it? How many believers would rather spend 3 hours watching TV than 1 hour praying and reading the Bible? Our lives are so filled with stuff and activity that there is no time for us to be still enough to hear God's voice in our lives. When we do sit still we either fall asleep or can't focus our thoughts because our minds are over-stimulated.

One other key was also raised by Barna: "people may have forgotten the ultimate reason for belonging to a Christian church." We aren't supposed to go to church to develop business connections. We aren't supposed to go to church to meet boys or girls. We aren't supposed to go to church to do our religious duty for the week. Church is all about worshiping God and experiencing Him through the interactions that we have with each other, the songs that we sing, the prayers that we offer, and the messages that we hear. Yet I fear that worshiping God has taken a back seat to all of the other stuff going on.

Of course, I could push it a little further and suggest that the ultimate reason for being a human, let alone a Christian, at all is to worship God. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it:

Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
(or as brother Piper says, "Man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.")

We are saved to set us free from the bondages that keep us from fulfilling our purpose in life. It is time that we took full advantage of the grace afforded to us by Jesus' death and resurrection and pursue the enjoyment of God as we were created to do.