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| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1464 Registered: 11-2007  |
I know this has been brought up before. Brent posted about this awhile back. I just wanted to bring it up again because I had an interesting "connect the dot" experience this past week, and found some interesting quotes. We went to hear a speaker from New Zealand who is traveling the US. He has a burden for the message of repentance to be restored to the American church and for the fallacies of the prosperity gospel to be exposed. I admire what he is doing, and agree with most of what he says... one of the few charismatic voices that I have been able to really agree with because he actually practices discernment. Many charismatic circles are very similar to Adventism in their refusal to test the gifts to see if they are genuine or not. Discernment is seen as being critical and condemning. This is what drew me to hear him, since I have not heard anyone in the U.S. willing to confront these issues. However.. this particular message we heard was actually an old-fashioned revival meeting. I began to feel uncomfortable because much of what he said sounded eerily similar to some sda perspectives on salvation. He made no distinction between our position in Christ and HIS righteousness, and the process of putting away sin in the here and now. Also, perfectionism was not expressly stated, but if all the statements he made that night were put together, this would be the implication. The burden for this work for purification seemed to be placed squarely on the shoulders of the hearers, and no mention was made of the power of the Spirit or the work of Grace in a person's life to free and transform. The error to me was not in what was said as much in what was not said. I liked that he was calling for total consecration (fully agree) and calling sin what it is and not claiming to be a follower of Christ if you are in fact willing to take up a cross and die to yourself. (also agree.) Many were convicted that night and came to repentance, which was great to see. I believe God works in spite of our shortfalls in explaining Him and His work. I have said it before and I will say it again - so many ministries seem to be able to focus only one of God's attributes. All love and mercy or all wrath and holiness. I find that interesting in itself. I know people still repent in meetings where it is not expressly called for, and I know people find grace and mercy in others where only the impending wrath of God is expressed. The Spirit is able to make up for our lack of coverage in our message. Anyway.. on the way home my husband had his theology books in the car for a course he is taking and I began to look up some things trying to figure out where to file what I had heard. I knew the speaker really looks up to Charles Finney, so I decided to investigate things starting there, taking from some things I had read posted here on the forum too. Here is what I found in a book called "The Mosaic of Christian Belief" by Roger E. Olson: (in response to that last line, that's highly debatable.) When you add this perspective to false obligations and contrived theology on the judgment/atonement - (which it's easier to see how the IJ could evolve with this basis), you have a really poisoned concoction. Just interesting to make the connections and realize there are still people today that ascribe to similar lines of thinking, from a continuing common influence. Sondra | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 10885 Registered: 12-2003  |
Sondra, I agree. The idea that God waits for people to come to Him is just not true. I further agree with you that his last sentence is debatable. Adventism is NOT moving toward orthodox Protestant Christianity. Just this morning I heard Dave Larsen, who is on the faculty of religion at LLU, say during the SS Lesson (broadcast on the internet) that its wrong to say humans are bad but God loves them anyway. He said that Smuts van Rooyen used a great analogy when they talked together recently; here it is: Humans are like a chandelier. It's lovely and sparkling--but it has fallen from the ceiling and has broken. The crystals in the chandelier are still beautiful and valuable, though--they just need to be put back together. Larsen proceeded to say that there is still value and beauty in humans—they're just broken and need to be made whole (there's the LLU motto: "To Make Man Whole"...) That analogy is just plain unbiblical. Ephesians and Colossians and Romans are very clear that we are, by nature, objects of wrath and citizens of the domain of darkness until God makes us alive in Christ, transfers us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, and seats us with Him in heavenly places. The idea that there is good naturally in humans is false. We are by nature children of wrath. But God loved us as spiritually dead people and brought us to life in Christ and by His resurrection life given to us. THAT is what transforms us! As spiritually dead people, we are unable to respond to God or move toward Him. He Himself reaches to us and comes to us and brings us to life and transfers us to the kingdom of Jesus! He indwells us, giving us new birth, new identities, new power, new potential. The new birth isn't just the result of our decision. The new birth is a unilateral miracle of God which He performs in us. He makes us able to believe! He is sovereign! I am not an accident of birth; I am His, and He knew me before I was born or any of my days had come to be. The reality of who we are and what God does is astonishing. Adventism is not moving toward orthodox Christianity. And unfortunately, Christianity is murky in many quarters about the truth of our nature and the sovereign power of God. He is eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent—and He loves us. I think your thoughts above, Sondra, point out why the most effective, powerful, and life-changing preaching is the expository teaching of God's word. Sermons that are primarily to bring about "decisions" may be powerful and moving, but it is the truth about God and the moving of His own Spirit in our dead spirits that changes us. As Paul says,
Colleen | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 651 Registered: 8-2008 |
I stay away from anyone preaching a call to "repentance," because most of them do not mean repentance as the Bible sees it. When Jesus talked about dying to ourselves, it was in the context of His Cross, by faith entering into in His death and resurrection, by which our old self is put to death and we become born again. Dying to ourselves means giving up on the illusion of our own human abilities to do good and to achieve righteousness, and coming to rely on God's grace alone for righteousness and holiness. I discuss this in the last few chapters of my book, when I cover the Biblical explanation of the Cross (shameless plug). Most modern Evangelicals think repentance means committing yourself to do all the right things and none of the wrong things, with right and wrong determined merely by external rules and not be the internal spiritual reality of genuine love. So what they call repentance is actually the opposite of Biblical repentance: Their "repentance" is a committment to greater reliance on self, rather than the true repentance, a change of heart and mind that comes when we recognize only God can save us and all of our efforts are merely digging our grave deeper. Their repentance means turning to the Old Covenant idea of outward obediance, rather than the New Covenant reality of living in God's love and thereby coming to love others. You rarely here anyone preach the simple gospel anymore, because it is contrary to so much of what pop-culture Pelagianism teaches. You might also like this: RC Sproul: The Pelagian Captivity of the Church. (Message edited by bskillet on January 30, 2010) | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1466 Registered: 11-2007 |
Colleen, from what I read that's not even semi, but full on Pelagian. At least the speaker I heard did not imply we are born good. By the end of the message we were very well convinced of our depravity! ha. Yes.. I think my view of repentance.. although using the same words at times, is different than what he was saying. These speakers (there was more than one actually) did speak of dying on the cross with Christ, but the emphasis was completely on the human initiative, not the supernatural experience of putting on grace which I have received and know on a personal level. I am amazed at the total and utterly effortless deliverance I have had in areas where I have truly confessed and trusted Christ that the sin died with him. They were also stressing total honesty and authenticity in order to become free, and I think this is a HUGE thing that does need to be brought up and practiced.. so I support that. I think they were doing good in spite of the quirks, but I agree with Colleen about expository teaching. I told my husband the next day.. You can quote a couple verses and then proceed to present a theology found nowhere in scripture. It's amazing. Sondra p.s. I was hoping you were going to mention your book here! =) I'm anxious to read it! | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 1864 Registered: 4-2000  |
Bskillet, Dr. Sproul's article on the Pelagian captivity of the church is right on the mark. Thanks for posting it. Truly, a new reformation is in order for contemporary Christianity. Dennis Fischer | ||
| Martin Registered user Username: Martin Post Number: 112 Registered: 11-2008 |
Now I wonder if a new reformation will also find the strong opposition of the "established church/es" of our time, as it happened before... My bet is that it's pretty likely. | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 652 Registered: 8-2008 |
It is already happening. The rise of the megachurch reflects the corporatist and mercenary ethic that has taken over a lot of churches. Pastors are increasingly career and money oriented. In order for their corporate empires to run profitably, they need huge amounts of slave labor from their members. Thus, they need people who do not believe in grace. So they teach Pelagianism because it is in their own economic interests. Just like the medieval Catholic church, they use fear of hell and the promise of working one's way to heaven in order to motivate people to do their bidding. A lot of Christians are leaving such churches and fellowshipping together in homes like the first century church, but the mercenary Pelagian clergy reply with, "If you're not in a building that we clergy have sanctioned for weekly mass, err, I mean worship, with one of us clerics as your covering, then it doesn't count." People follow after demonic imposters like Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, etc. because their own Pelagian pastors have conditioned them to prefer a false performance gospel to the true gospel of grace. | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1469 Registered: 11-2007 |
Those are actually things the man I heard speaks out against very loudly. He says if there is another revival in America, it will be in the streets, not the churches. Will be interesting. |
