Magic in the Modern Church

'The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths' (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

That remarkable verse about sums up the major crisis in the modern church. {Side note: we are aware that godly, Bible teaching churches exist today; when we say the 'church' we refer to the majority of churches, not necessarily all of them.) Some of our most prominent 'teachers' have been quoted as saying: 'We need to make the modern church relevant to our times.' The danger here lies in modern man's desire to shape reality around his will. Atheism, New Thought, Charismatic, Word of Faith, and Theoretical Physicists all support this line of thought. They all claim or at least deductively suggest that man has power within himself to create his reality.

Revealingly, this hokum comes from the Law of Positive Attraction, which states that to create a particular reality one must put out energy of a similar sort (positive energy), and the Law of Words of Power, which states that certain words are able to alter internal and external realities of those uttering them (according to one prominent preacher/author the words 'I Am' can change your reality). THESE PRINCIPLES ARE LAWS OF MAGIC! That's right, they come from magician Isaac Bonewits' book of magic Authentic Thaumaturgy.

A long time ago man decided to shape reality, to make a name for himself (birth of pride?). We got together and tried to reach heaven on our terms. How did God react? He understood that if man achieved real power, his pride would always lead him to making the wrong choices, so He confused man's language, and scattered mankind. This was the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, btw.

The point is that mankind does not possess the wisdom or authority to decide what is right and wrong. When we attempt to take this authority (always without the wisdom) our efforts lead to division and strife. This is why we cannot agree on the rights of abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, wars, etc. Only God has the right, only God has the wisdom. What His WORD says, we should follow. As the Bible is the only divinely inspired document in the world, we should look therein for guidance. Our attempts to modernize the church are being guided by our desire to hear new things, different things, easy things that are not always biblical things. The more we modernize the church, the more we compromise our faith in His WORD and the further we distance ourselves from Him. Reality (change in the church) ought to be shaped by the Word of God. Sin is still sin. Tolerance for sin may increase church attendance, but it diminishes the Kingdom.

'Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matthew 7:23).  
 

Is the Modern American Church Irrelevant?

New Age, Charismatic, and even regular old-school preachers across America are striving to make the modern church relevant. What methods are they employing in this relevant revolution? Well, they have:

Installed coffee cafes inside the church building (because a caffeinated congregation is an awake congregation?), discarded classic Spirit-moving hymns in favor of edgy quasi-Christian pop-culture songs, set up video game consoles (no, for real!), watered down the Gospel to make it acceptable to a broader demographic, removed those offensive religious symbols called crosses that used to identify churches as houses of worship, or just went and built new structures with stages that more closely resemble rock halls than pulpits, and begun quoting popular and best-selling 'spiritual' books, relegating the old dusty Bible to back-up status.


As pleasant as these techniques might sound to 'progressive Christians', a point can be made here that those who employ these methods to make the church relevant are more interested in satisfying modern impulses than in serving up the hard truths of the Gospel. (Uplifting messages are great and they have their place, but they rarely serve to convict, and without conviction there is no repentance.) The problem lies in our mentality. In this age of instant gratification and consumerism we think of relevance in terms of newness.

But we must ask ourselves three vital questions: Has the Word of God suddenly become defunct? Has our need for salvation changed? Has the path to salvation changed?

If you've correctly concluded that the answer to these questions is a resounding NO, then you realize only one pertinent question remains. Are these efforts to modernize the Church truly building up the body of Christ? If the purpose of the message is to win souls to Christ, then any and all effort must be expended, but if in these efforts we begin seeking new methods, we inevitably wander from the one narrow path to salvation, which is Christ. By adopting methods that tweak the Word instead of us, we compromise our faith.

The modern American Church has indeed grown apart from God and needs to be made relevant. But we must inspect the root cause of its irrelevance before we can hope to make it relevant again. The Gospel has not changed, nor has our need for it. The only thing that has changed is our desire to hear something new (2 Timothy 4:3-4). We will explore these RELEVANT verses and how to make the Church relevant again in a BIBLICAL manner next time. Good day and God bless!

From Billy Graham to Joel Osteen

For decades America’s spiritual leader was Billy Graham.

Here was a man who studied the Word of God daily, who led by example and didn’t bypass certain biblical verses if they didn’t suit his agenda. Here was a man who knew God, who lived and loved the message of the Cross. Here was a man who preached the Gospel to more people than any other person in history—to the salvation of countless souls.

We were blessed to have been led by such an inspirational bible-believing teacher.

Unfortunately due to advancing age (almost 97 year old today!) and declining health, the Reverend Billy Graham stepped down a few years ago. Today if America can be said to have a spiritual leader, the media would no doubt designate Joel Osteen as such, or any of a dozen other preachers of his genie-in-a-bottle god.

We are not blessed in this.

‘We know we have come to know God, when we obey His commands. The man who says “I know Him” but doesn’t do what He commands is a liar. But if anyone obeys His word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. Whoever claims to live in Him, must walk as Jesus did’ 1 John 2:3-6. Love is expressed in obedience to God’s word—to His entire word.

While Osteen has risen as a celebrity preacher, America has declined from a God-Blessed country to a Godless nation. This is not a coincidence. Where Billy Graham shared the Gospel in a simple clear manner, emphasizing the potency of and need for Christ, Joel Osteen shares his personal philosophy, one that equates more with new-age self help attitudes than with biblical righteousness. He does not walk as Jesus walked.

To be clear, Joel Osteen does not preach from the bible, he merely uses some of its less offensive passages to convey a general sense of morality. His use of scripture is manipulative. Sprinkling in the occasional inspirational verse, Osteen very cleverly avoids the more touchy or provocative parts, like the crucifixion, repentance, sin, and the one narrow path to heaven—which is Jesus Christ!—to emphasize a prosperity gospel that is not scriptural.

Billy Graham’s famous Crusades culminated in calls of repentance to affect changed lives and saved souls. Joel Osteen’s Night of Hope event culminated in praise for his inspirational words.

Let that sink in for a second.

Billy Graham taught that without the Cross there is no salvation, and that the Cross is offensive—because it is the condemnation of the world. Woo boy. People don’t want to hear things like that today. That’s why instead:

Joel Osteen chooses to teach that you are not a complete believer until you are financially set, until you have that second luxury car you want, until you are out of debt and better than your ‘less than the best’ neighbor.

Billy Graham said: You’re a sinner. You’d better repent. (Hard truth trumps cozy-but-false teachings.)

Joel Osteen says: You’re destined for great things in this world. Don’t settle for mediocrity.

Billy Graham taught: God is good.

Joel Osteen teaches: You are good, maybe even a little god.

It’s easy to see why so many people fall for the prosperity teaching and feel-good sermons of Joel Osteen. But 2 Peter warns us against his slimy me-first theology: ‘Beware false prophets . . . Many will follow their unrestrained ways, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. In their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words.’

If you want to be a dupe for Osteen, that’s your choice. If not, read on.

Whenever Osteen mentions God in his sermons, it is to explain how God will bless you if only you will believe that you are worthy of every blessing.

But that doesn’t jibe with scripture. Usually when the bible uses the term ‘prosperity’ it is referring to spiritual well-being or sufficient fiscal care, not temporal wealth. Psalms 143:2 says ‘No one alive is righteous in Your sight.’ Romans 3:9-10 says ‘All are under sin . . . There is no one righteous, not even one.’ Christ Himself spoke against the love of money: ‘You cannot serve both God and money’ Luke 16:13. See also, 1 Timothy 6:9-11, a real eye-opener against Osteen.

We need God—not to improve our social standing or to get ‘liked’ on Facebook or to grow our bank accounts. No, we need God to save us from our sinful nature so we might glorify HIM and be redeemed by His grace to spend eternity in heaven. (All of which is impossible without repentance and the death on the Cross. But don’t ask Osteen about the Cross. I’m pretty sure he skipped over that part in the bible.)

‘Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal’ (there goes your luxury car). ‘But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’ Matthew 6:19-21.

‘Your Best Life Now’? I’d rather enjoy blessings in heaven forever than riches here on earth for a few years.

Don’t be like the other sheep, following any false shepherd (Jeremiah 50:6) who’ll tell them what they want to hear. Don't eat up any piece of crap these false shepherds happen to lay before you.

God gave us brains, people. Let’s use them.

Good night and God bless.   

Gratitude of a Thankful Nation

Gratitude: An essential yet often neglected aspect of salvation.

I’ve noticed that I spend a lot of my prayer time asking God to accomplish certain things, or to do this or change that. Sometimes it takes me a while to even realize when he has answered prayers or otherwise blessed me and mine in various areas of our lives. In failing to recognize his answers, I neglect to thank him. In fact, gratitude seems the last and smallest part of our prayer lives. This must change.

1 Thessalonians 5:16 states: ‘Rejoice always! Pray constantly. Give thanks in everything, for this is Gods will for you in Christ Jesus.’

Psalm 100:4 admonishes us to: ‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good, and his love is eternal: his faithfulness endures through all generations.’

Gratitude is an absolutely essential part of salvation. Without it we are no better than monkeys who’ve been given everything and yet display no gratitude for anything. Gratitude is the proper response to God’s saving grace, and it should be expressed every day in every prayer. Mature believers in Christ are thankful believers.

Thank you Father for the roof over our heads

Thank you Father for the food in our cupboards

Thank you Father for our health, and for our recovery from illness

Thank you Father for the ability to think and to know you

Thank you Father for our senses and for your amazing love each day

Thank you Father for everything we take for granted

Amen