An unchanging message for an ever-changing world

The gospel of Christ is all sufficient

by Dr. John Hamby

First Baptist Church

Vilonia, Arkansas

One of the most frequently used phrases in Christian circles is “the gospel”. Amazingly few adults know what this term means. It could either refer to its literal translation, "good news;" or to the perspective that salvation is available only through the sacrificial death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus Christ and a person’s acceptance of Christ as their savior. Less than four out of ten adults (37 percent) knew this; 34 percent had other, inaccurate perceptions of the meaning of the term; three out of ten adults did not offer a guess. Even among born again Christians, only 60 percent correctly identified at least one meaning of this expression, (Barna Research Online).

“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from
Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not
another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of
Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you
than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before,
so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you
have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I
seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a servant of
Christ.” (Gal. 1:6-10)

In the past thirty years there has been a proliferation of “new gospels” in the United States. Some, such as the “new age” belief system, are rooted in eastern mysticism, such as Hinduism. Others are based more on pop psychology than they are on the gospel. But whatever their origin they are misdirecting men and women away from the only truth that can save you from your sin.

The core of this letter is that the people at Galatia have been turned from the life changing truth of God’s word. Paul says in verse six, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of
Christ, to a different gospel.”

The Greek word used here (thaumazou) is “to be astounded or bewildered.” Paul’s astonishment is not that false teachers exist, but that the church was following them. He had expected false teachers and in fact had warned
the Ephesians elders (Acts 20:28-30) that false teachers would come. What he is so surprised about is that the
church is so easily mislead.

In the four verses that we are going to consider today the apostle gives us four abiding principles concerning the word of God, the gospel.

The gospel needs no additions

Note that these false teachers are not openly denying the gospel message. They only wanted to improve the gospel by adding to it; requirements, new ceremonies and new standards. It is as if they are saying, “We believe
in Jesus Christ – but we have something wonderful to add to what you already believe!” What is at least implied is that the faith that these believers have is not sufficient, something more is needed.

What they viewed as a different gospel was actually a distorted gospel. The word translated “distort” means to transform into something of an opposite character.

He goes on in verse seven to clarify that by saying, “which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” The New Living Translation renders these verses this way, “I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who in his love and mercy called you to share the eternal life he gives through Christ. You are already following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who twist and change the truth concerning Christ”

Paul says that this new gospel or “good news,” is in reality not the gospel or “good news” at all. It is a counterfeit. In verses six and seven, Paul uses two different Greek words, to describes their spiritual defection to another
[heterous – another of a different kind] gospel, which is not another [allos – another of the same kind].

Distorting the gospel is serious business

In verse eight Paul invokes a curse on anyone, himself included, who distorts the gospel, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As
we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”

Paul is saying that the real problem of another gospel is not only that it is a bad idea, and not only that it lacks power because it is a fake, but that it is dangerous. In our sensitive English translation we lose some of the heat of this verse in the original language. He says in verse eight, “If anyone comes with another gospel let him be damned.” And in verse nine he continues the thought by saying, “And if you believe it you will be damned too!” Well if nothing else I probably just got your attention! This is not a curse word, it is using the word in its proper sense – that is these individuals will be damned, separated from God and eternally punished. Those who distort the gospel message are rejecting the authority of Christ and are therefore cursed (anathema). Paul is not talking about church discipline, his language is far too strong for that. He is invoking God’s final damnation and wrath on people who distort the gospel.

I fear that those who followed David Koresh in a compound in Waco, Texas, to their fiery deaths in 1993; and the followers of Marshall Applewhite’s (Heaven’s Gate Cult) who in 1997 took their own lives in twisted attempt to connect with extra-terrestrial visitors who were hidden in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet, will not find themselves excused because of their sincerity. And those who led them into that error will bear a greater judgment.

One modern distortion of the gospel is preached in order to fit Christianity in a materialistic society. The message of this gospel we call “the gospel of success” or “the prosperity Gospel,” is based on the premise that God wants to bless you therefore you can only expect good things from Him if you follow Him. The problem with this gospel is that it ignores the fact that in Christian life there is sorrow, there is suffering, there is death. The key of the gospel of Jesus is not the avoidance of life events, but the possibility to overcome them.

Only the gospel saves

Back in verse four, Paul reminds the believer that it was Christ “who gave Himself for our sins.” As Christians in America we believe in the freedom of religion. But Christians need to realize that does not make all religions equally true. While we defend the right of each individual in this country to worship as they choose, in so doing we are not defending that all religions are also “the” truth.

The words of Jesus grant this elusive claim only to faith in Him when he said in John 14:6, “I m the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The writer of Acts reiterated that thought when he said in Acts 4:12, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved.”

Only the gospel produces real life change

The strongest argument for the Gospel of Christ is the personal testimony of someone whose life has been changed by it. Charles Bradlaugh, an avowed infidel, once challenged the Rev. H. P. Hughes to a debate. The
preacher, who was head of a rescue mission in London, England, accepted the challenge with the condition that he could bring with him 100 men and women who would tell what had happened in their lives since trusting Christ as their Savior. They would be people who once lived in deep sin, some having come from poverty-stricken homes caused by the vices of their parents. Hughes said they would not only tell of their conversion, but would submit to cross-examination by any who doubted their stories. Furthermore, the minister invited his opponent to bring a group of non-believers who could tell how they were helped by their lack of faith. When the appointed day arrived, the preacher came, accompanied by 100 transformed persons. But Bradlaugh never showed up. The result? The meeting turned into a testimony time and many sinners who had gathered to hear the debate were converted.

When we lose the gospel of Grace we lose the only message that has the power to heal. We witness the power of the gospel in the story of the demon possessed man in Luke 8:26-39. The demon possessed man experienced many horrors at the hands of neighbors, family and even friends in their attempts to deliver him from the demons who possessed him. Luke 8:29 states that they had “had often seized him, and he was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles.” In spite of all their attempts to cure him, he was no better off. Multiple attempts had obviously been made at deliverance but had failed, but one encounter with Jesus brought deliverance and sanity.
When the townspeople investigated what had had happened we are told in verse thirty-five that they, “found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind” There were no chains. He was no longer screaming and attempting to hurt himself. He was not sedated, he was “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

That is what we lose if we lose the gospel, the power to change lives.

In verse ten Paul tells the reader why he is saying these things. “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” Paul says that he is not trying to be sensational. He is not saying these things, as some preachers do, because he knows it is a good safe topic and he can count on some hearty amens. He is saying them because there is only one truth and the gospel
message that Jesus Christ came and died for man’s sins is the only real truth.

Author stresses urgent need for fearless witnessing

by Allie Martin

A Georgia-based evangelist is trying to motivate and equip believers to reach friends and strangers for Jesus. In his book One Thing You Can't Do in Heaven (Genesis Publications, 2004), Mark Cahill says when it comes to witnessing, Christians can overcome fear and have confidence.

Cahill says every follower of Jesus Christ is called to be a witness, and each believer needs to redeem the time and make the most of every chance to share the gospel with the lost.

As the minister is fond of pointing out to fellow Christians, “We can worship God in heaven, we can praise God in heaven, and we can sing songs to God in heaven, but one thing we cannot do is share our faith with a nonbeliever in heaven — because they're not going to be there.”

Passionate about communicating a sense of the urgency of witnessing and helping people come to a saving knowledge of Christ, Cahill suggests that, for unbelievers, time is swiftly running out. Therefore, he says, “if we're going to reach them, we have to reach them here, and we've got to reach them now.”

The author of One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven says Christians have opportunities to share their faith in Christ on a daily basis and must not be afraid to talk about the realities of hell to unbelievers. However, he suspects that many believers who forego these opportunities do so because they are afraid of rejection.

But Cahill says he learned in his own spiritual walk that God's Word addresses his fears about being rejected by unbelievers as he shares the gospel. “When you read the scriptures,” he notes, “it says that they're actually not even rejecting me—they’re rejecting Jesus Christ [Matt. 10:22a]. And if you really think about it, it ought to hurt me a whole lot more that they're rejecting Jesus and not that they're rejecting me.”

However, it can be easy to forget this, Cahill says, “because of our prideful ways as people” and to think, as he has, “Oh, they rejected Mark Cahill.” But today the Great Commission-minded minister says, “Forget Mark Cahill. They're rejecting the Son of Almighty God.”

And that, the evangelist says, is what should bother believers far more than any personal rejection. “That should bother us to pray for these people,” he says. “That should bother us to share our faith to make sure they don't go anywhere near hell.”

Cahill resides in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and often leads witnessing efforts at music concerts, art festivals, sporting events, and homosexual gatherings in the metro Atlanta area. He also travels around the U.S., addressing more than 25,000 people annually at churches, retreats, conferences, and camps, in an effort to equip and challenge more of the saved to go out and reach the lost.

This article appears with permission of AgapePress.com © 2004

False doctrine leads to deception

by Donna J. Kazenski

Most Christians today have no problem discerning that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Masons, etc. are teaching false doctrine and leading many astray. However, there are many who are not able to discern truth from error. As a result, they have placed themselves in the hands of the enemy and are being led down a path of deception and destruction.

Paul warned that false teachers would attempt to infiltrate the church from both the outside and from within. Peter wrote, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction,” 2 Peter 2:1 (KJV). The word translated as “privily” not only describes the method by which false doctrine is smuggled into the church, but also describes its deceptive purpose.

The original Greek word pareisago, is a three-fold word that begins with the preposition para. Para means “alongside” and describes the smuggling operation. False teaching runs alongside true doctrine. This creates a deception difficult to detect because it is close to sound doctrine.

Those who work with money must be trained to know the difference between a counterfeit and a genuine dollar bill. Spiritually speaking, we can apply these same truths when it comes to exposing false teachings that are propagated in the body of Christ today. We must allow the Lord to minister to us and train us according to His holy word and by the power of His Spirit. We must be careful that we do not allow another Jesus or another gospel to lead us into error.

The next part of pareisago is the Greek word eis which means “into”. Usually men or women from within the ranks of Christianity will run these false teachings alongside (para) true doctrine for the purpose of getting their deception into (eis) the church. The final part of this word is the Greek word ago. This word means “to lead”. The end result of false doctrine is for individuals to be led astray.

The Greek word pareisago reveals that false doctrine runs right alongside true doctrine, to get it into the body of Christ and to lead individuals astray.

The sad fact of the matter is that many times the deception is brought into the body of Christ by respected leaders and laymen. Therefore, we must learn to eat the meat and spit out the bones or we will find ourselves choking on what we should never have consumed.

Hebrews 13:9 tells us not to be not carried away with divers and strange doctrines. The church must not be quick to embrace every teaching that comes from the pulpit. We must learn to sift the teachings given to us through the filter of the scriptures. The word of God will expose which is error and which is truth. We must pay attention to what God’s word is saying. If what we are hearing is not lining up with the word of God, we would save ourselves from deception and heartache if we would just learn how to spit out the bones.

In Matthew 22:29, Jesus told the Sadducees that they didn’t know the scriptures very well. I believe this is one of the major problems of the body of Christ today. We do not know the scriptures or the power of God. We have settled for less than God’s manifest presence in our midst. We have neglected spending time at the Master’s feet in prayer and adoration of who He really is. We have accepted the teachings of man instead of the word of God. We have negated the power of God because we do not know Him in the way that we should know Him. We have embraced everything that has been dished out to us, but we have not yet learned how to embrace the Cross and the Christ who died upon it.

The early church tapped into this power as they gathered together in one accord and began to seek the Lord of glory. They didn’t seek after new techniques or the latest Christian fad; they sought after the power of the Holy Spirit and they received the power needed to evangelize the whole known world. They possessed what many of us do not possess today.

They spent time with Jesus and as a result of their relationship with Him; they experienced His power to seek and save that which was lost. They manifested His power to those who needed His supernatural touch.

If we want to see the power of God manifested in our midst, we must focus our eyes upon Jesus and allow ourselves to be saturated with His word so that we will be able to discern between that which is truth and that which is error. May the Lord turn us from that which is counterfeit to that which is genuine.

Tozer Made Easy - Part 10 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter 10: "The sacrament of living"

Editor's note: If you’ve been following along, you know that the editor has taken each chapter of the book The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer and published here a short study in the form of articles. Chapter 10 is the final installment of this series. We hope you have found the series helpful to you in your walk with Christ.

Basing his last chapter on the doctrine found in 1 Cor. 10:31, Tozer ends his book on a triumphal note. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” His main point for us to understand is that we cannot have internal peace if we divide our lives into the sacred and the secular.

This false division of life causes inner turmoil and tends “to break up so that we live a divided instead of unified life.”

Merging two worlds

We live in two worlds simultaneously, the fleshly or natural and the spiritual. When we keep them separate, we “are uneasy most of the time ... with a feeling of deep frustration.” This is not the light yoke that Christ promises the repentant believer. But, we subject ourselves to this by trying “to walk a tight rope between two kingdoms and [we] find no peace in either.”

Tozer’s claim is that this dualistic life is not only unhealthy physically and spiritually, it is “wholly unnecessary.” He teaches that a divided life between the sacred and the secular is not founded in the New Testament. Christ Himself is the example, saying He does all things to please the Father.

This example was echoed by Paul who teaches us that we are to do all things to the glory of God. This isn’t just platitudes, this is the genuine way of the Christian walk. Tozer explains it this way, “It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God.”

All things can glorify God

It begs the question, can eating and drinking and the banal things of life be an act of reference? Tozer, as well as the Apostle Paul, teaches that this is the case. “It may be said that every act of life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord’s Supper.

Many may still disagree with this notion. However our author wrote that if we are saved and give ourselves wholly to God, all acts are holy. “By one act of consecration of our total selves to God we can make every subsequent act express that consecration.”

As Christians, we must not make a mental or actual division between the sacred and the secular or we will live divided lives. Once we get past this dilemma, the reality of living in a unified manner for Christ, it will “condition the complexion of our thoughts.”

Our morning meditations must include this training. We must recall to our mind frequently that our daily acts can be acts of worship and can give glory to God. “The knowledge that we are all God’s, that He has received all and rejected nothing, will unify our inner lives and make everything sacred to us.”

Disciplined sacramental living

Tozer explains that the old way of thinking will want to creep back into our lives because Satan doesn’t want the whole of our lives to be about God. He writes, “It will take intelligent thought and a great deal of reverent prayer to escape completely from the sacred-secular psychology.”

Offer every thing we do to God. He will accept them. Remind God in our time of private communion that our intention is to make all our activities for His glory. Or in Tozer’s wonderful style, “Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration.”

A contributing factor to our erroneous belief that we keep things separate is the fact that many Christians believe in sacred places or things.

“It is little short of astonishing that we can read the New Testament and still believe in the inherent sacredness of places as distinguished from other places.” Tozer laments that this false doctrine has been allowed to be perpetuated for centuries.

An omnipresent spirit of worship

When Christ was crucified, many things took place. Not the least of which was the total access of the true believer to God. No longer was God limited to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. The veil before the Holy of Holies was torn in two. Remember Christ’s own words, “Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” Worshipping God is a spiritual matter, not a matter of place or time or things.

Many denominations have let the sacredness of things creep back into the liberty we enjoy through Christ’s work. And it was from this “bondage reformers and puritans and mystics have labored to free us.”

Tozer also cautions us to understand that the concept of sacramental living doesn’t mean that all things are equal or of equal importance in this world or the next. “One act of a good man’s life may differ widely from another in importance.” He uses the example of Paul’s work as a tentmaker as an example. “Paul’s sewing of tents was not equal to his writing of an epistle to the Romans, but both were accepted of God.”

Why we act is most important

Driving home his point with his best shot, Tozer continues to explain, “It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it,” (emphasis added). Lay people should never consider what they do as inferior to that of the act of a preached sermon. It is the motive of the act that is the key to it being a sacred act done for God’s glory or not.

A spiritual condition is required. Tozer tells us that we must, “Sanctify the Lord God in [our] heart.” Upon doing so, except for our sins, nothing we will ever do will be secular. One who lives this way is pleasing to God. “All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary.”

The Pursuit of God along with The Knowledge of the Holy are two of Tozer’s most popular and impactful writings. I strongly encourage everyone to read and re-read these important, yet short, books.

Tozer Made Easy - Part 9 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter 9: "Meekness and Rest"

A popular British comedy shown here in America is titled, “Keeping Up Appearances.” Each episode centers around a middle-aged woman who is desperate to ensure everyone in her sphere of influence considers her to be posh and high society.

The fact is, however, she and her whole family are just everyday people. The humor ensues when she goes to great lengths to protect the complex façade she has created for the outside world to admire. She is breathless at every turn and drags her compliant husband through one fiasco after another. This woman is so busy creating a false life that she fails to notice she’s not living at all.

Funny thing is that we’re all like this in some way or another. We have much to hide from the world that we’re afraid to reveal. And it takes a lot of work to hide our faults. In fact, we are never done with the business of considering how we are viewed by others around us. It’s part of our sin pathology. Our core sin, pride, keeps our pathological engines running, sometimes racing, to ensure we do not lapse into revealing our true selves to the world.

Christ addressed this very thing which is the topic of Tozer’s ninth chapter, “Meekness and Rest.”

Tozer helps us understand that the Beatitudes are the “exact opposite of the virtues” that characterize the way humans live their lives. This, to our unrelenting detriment.

The portrait of human society

The opposite of the Beatitudes is what we see today and is the primary reason we experience many trials and tribulations in our lives. “Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil imaginings, malice, greed: these are the sources of more human pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh.”

Tozer shows us that it is in this condition that Christ came and spoke godly words when He uttered “blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.”

In this chapter, the author points out that the word meek is too often misunderstood. He shows us that Christ explained it later when He invited men to take up His yoke and bear a light burden.

Christ’s burden is different from man’s burden. Man’s burden is borne by every human — “it is altogether an interior one.” Our burden is self-love and pride which is at the heart of our sin. We are oppressed by this burden for, “the heart’s fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest.”

But, Christ’s burden is different. It is light! And when we are released from the burden of man, we find we are at rest. “The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.”

This is real rest for which many seek. A rest that only following and believing Christ can bring. A rest that comes from seeing oneself from God’s perspective. Tozer encourages us, “come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think.”

Meek does not equal weak

Don’t equate a meek godly man with someone who is weak in faculties. “The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself.”

So what about this inherit the earth promise? That’s a good question and should be answered by what we value compared to what God values. The meek Christian understands that the world will not understand godly values and he has stopped worrying about it. The meek Christian is at rest in knowing that the things God values are eternal and he will one day inherit the earth. “He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father.”

When we put ego and pride aside and take up Christ’s burden, we find we “will have attained a place of soul rest.” We have God as our public defender and are at peace.

Like Lucifer, pride is our sin

Our desire to shine and stand apart from others for our own ego is not any different than that of the great angel Lucifer. Did not he want to shine brighter for others to see? Did not he want to be something he really was not? For his sin of pride, Lucifer lost his position with God and will spend eternity in turmoil. What did Lucifer gain for his pride?

What do we gain in our pride? We gain a tumultuous life filled with constantly defending ourselves against the world. We gain heartache and pain. We gain cruelty and corruption. We gain quarrelling and mistreatment. We gain the consequences of our sin, which are the opposite of the Beatitudes Christ so eloquently articulated on the Mount of Olives.

Our pride is a heavy burden. It is breaking us under its pressure, according to Tozer. He writes, “There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ.”

Rest at the foot of the throne

In a prayer at the end of this chapter, Tozer asks God to help him take God’s “easy yoke of self-forgetfulness.” This is the condition when Christ is on the throne and the other elements of our life are aligned with Jesus. When we place ourselves on the throne of our life, we bear a burden that is impossible in order to keep ourselves on that throne.

Christ calls us, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” Are we experiencing a life of rest or a life of tumult? Are we defeated by trials or do we allow God to defend us?

Or better put by our author:

The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when
we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend. It will take some
courage at first, but the needed grace will come as we learn that we are
sharing the new and easy yoke with the strong Son of God Himself. He calls
it “my yoke” and He walks at one end while we walk at the other.”

Tozer Made Easy - Part 8 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter 8: "Restoring the Creator-creature relationship"

This chapter takes a simple look at our relationship with God because our relationship is a simple one. If we feel it’s complicated, then it is we who have clouded it and mixed it up. It’s this mix up that Tozer addresses in Chapter 8 — the dealing with a properly ordered relationship between man and God.

The author indicates that justification is the “restoration of a right relation between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the Creator-creature relation.” This is, of course, a reference to being born again and all that means regarding our sin, Christ’s atoning sacrifice, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

God is the reference point

But, to better understand the relationship, Tozer backs us up to defining a fixed point, which is the I AM, from which we have established our relationship as a human. God is the center, so to speak, but our “difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him.”

In a succinct paragraph, Tozer sums it up:

As the self-existent One, He gave being to all things, and all things exist
out of Him and for Him. Every soul belongs to God and exists by His
pleasure. God being Who and What He is, and we being who and what we are,
the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and
complete submission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to
give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less.

As humans, in our search for the true post-justification relationship with God, we will gladly accept the challenges and failures of “bringing our total personality into conformity to His.” Yet, Tozer doesn’t let us rest with the intellectual reality of this, he pushes us to understand that being rightly aligned with God means a “voluntary exalting of God to His proper station over us and a willing surrender of our whole being to the place of worshipful submission which the Creator-creature circumstance makes proper.”

According to Tozer, this will change us as children of God. We will see things differently and the way we think will be transformed. The transformation, Tozer writes, “will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.”

We gain in our submission

When we acknowledge God’s actual position, we become willing worshippers without shame or worry. Our sense of purpose becomes evident to us. “Let no one imagine that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary sell-out of his all to God. In exalting God over all, he finds his own highest honor upheld.”

Among many other biblical accounts of God’s people, Tozer points to Christ as our ultimate example. He indicates that Christ did not seek His own honor, but the honor of God, the Father who sent Him. This is worth considering as Christ is fully God Himself. Tozer references Christ who explains that self-honor is nothing, but only honor from the Father is desirable and eternal.

The self can get in the way

Does Tozer believe this is an easy position to take, this total sell out to God? No. He explains that a “God-above-all” position is challenging — especially when self will gets in the way. “The mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to put it into effect.” As written in earlier chapters, man must tear the self out and replace the vacancy with God and ascribe to Him all that He is deserving to receive.

What is the result? Simply this, if a man will glorify and consider God above all things in life, including the self, then God will unveil Himself more to the believer and place all His resources at their use. For God knows that “His honor is safe in such consecrated hands.”

Tozer Made Easy - Part 6 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter Six: The Speaking Voice

In this sublime chapter, Tozer arrests our attention on the reason why we often find it difficult to find God when we pursue him. We don’t realize that God will manifest Himself by speaking His will. If we’re to pursue God, we had better listen to what He says.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The depth and breadth of John 1:1, its cosmic complexity, is at the heart of what Tozer is teaching in this chapter. It is God’s word in the universe, His creating voice, that we seek. The author writes, “God’s word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God’s word in the universe.” The voice of God is not limited to ink and paper but is inseparable from God — “... and the Word was God.”

The objective then, for those who honestly pursue God, is to listen as they seek. At no time does Tozer discount the scriptures. On the contrary, God uses the Bible to reveal Himself as the “inevitable outcome” of His voice. Yet, our author writes that God did not send us a book by messenger to be read by unaided minds. “He spoke a Book and lives in His spoken words, constantly speaking His words and causing the power of them to persist across the years.”

God spoke and creation was. This voice has been speaking since and God wants us to find the same voice of creation that is speaking to each one of us today. Just think of having communion with the same voice that spoke the universe into existence. It is what He wants for us. “The order and life of the world depends upon that voice, but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention.” This is a quote more than 40-years old. Wasn’t life simpler then? Aren’t we more busy today than when Tozer was writing. I’m guessing that God sees us as just as neglectful at spending time with Him today as in the years of wilderness wandering.

Listening is not popular. We have fallen into a cult of busyness and even let ‘church work’ get in the way of listening to the creating voice. God directs us in the scriptures to be still as if to “tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence.”

Being still and quiet requires solitude, preferably with our Bibles open. According to Tozer, it’s then we draw near to God in stillness and often hear Him speak to our hearts.

Never forget that God is spirit and seeks those who connect with Him in spirit. That spirit can walk in Presence with us as in the garden and illuminate the Bible for us. With dedication to being still, God’s voice will become an “intelligible word, warm and intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend.” It is Tozer’s belief that a fresh existence, “a new world will arise ... when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking.”

Tozer admits that some, even those in pulpits, believe that God was once in a speaking period and that time has passed. This is not the truth. The fact is that God is “not silent, has never been silent” because it is in His nature to speak. In fact, the second Person of the Trinity is called the Word.

A very picturesque quote from the author paints a picture of God’s word in the universe. “The universal Voice of God was by the ancient Hebrews often called Wisdom, and was said to be everywhere sounding and searching throughout the earth, seeking some response from the sons of men.”

Are we waiting for some word from God? According to Tozer, if you’re not hearing God, you’re not listening. He goes on to explain that the “Voice is a friendly voice. No one need fear to listen to it unless he has already made up his mind to resist it.”

Tozer goes so far as to discuss his belief that we often hear the Voice and not recognize it as God’s. Sometimes we have a sudden feeling of wonder or awe or realize our universal smallness. Or we experience a “fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun, giving us in a quick flash an assurance that we are from another world. We were forced to suspend our acquired doubts while, for a moment, the clouds were rolled back and we saw and heard for ourselves ... the Presence of God in the world and His persistent effort to communicate with mankind.”

Finally, of the words of the Bible, Tozer encourages us to approach them with the same reverence that we do the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient God. He concludes, “If [we] would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to [us]. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which [we] may push around at [our] convenience. It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God.”

Tozer Made Easy - Part 5 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God: Chapter 5 - The Universal Presence

Tozer, in this fifth chapter, does not let the sleepy Christian rest on a simplistic understanding of the omnipresence of God or, to use his words, the divine immanence. His observation is that Christians really don’t think deeply about this or they would see much more than the simple idea that God is everywhere. Instead, Tozer points out that if God’s immanence or omnipresence were deeply rooted in our thinking, we would live a different life.

He spends needed space explaining, often in very poetic terms, that God simply is “here” and there can be no place that He is not. If this weren’t true, according to Tozer, God couldn’t be the Cause of all that is and worthy of the lives we give Him.

But, there seems to be an intellectual hurdle that most Christians don’t clear when it comes to this all-important fact about God. Tozer writes, “These are truths believed by every instructed Christian. It remains for us to think on them and pray over them until they begin to glow within us.” It’s clear that the author felt we are not glowing with this knowledge.

“If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world?”

So, we’re prompted to ask why do we not “universally” glow with this knowledge. The answer can be found in the words of Jacob who cried out in wonder, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.” Tozer writes that Jacob, and all mankind, have never been without the ever-present immanence of the Creator. But, somehow, through our unwillingness, our hardheartedness or imperception, we miss God in our presence. According to the writer, “Men do not know that God is here. What a difference it would make if they knew.”

Key to unlock our closed hearts

In the chapter, Tozer explains that there is a difference between the reality of the Presence and the manifestation of the Presence. In other words, God is always there. But, when we take note of Him, He is manifest to us. If we want to continually have the manifestation of our God, keep ourselves fully aware of God’s presence, then we must “surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work is to show us the Father and the Son.” Tozer writes that if we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in this way, God will “manifest Himself to us” and that is the difference between a luke-warm life and a life on fire for God filled with the joy of glorifying Him.

If we are truly in pursuit of God, we will meet Him because God seeks to reveal Himself to us. It’s not that God isn’t present and we need to find Him. We first must deeply contemplate that God is ever-present and wants to make Himself manifest to us in our daily endeavors. Tozer puts it more eloquently:

Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us. The revelation of God to any man is not God coming from a distance…to pay a brief and momentous visit to the man's soul. The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter of miles but of experience.

Differences of experience

If God is ever-present, for all Christians, why is it that some people seem to have a closer experience than others? God’s desire is to manifest Himself to all without prejudice or favoritism. So what’s the difference? “All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us.”

The difference, according to Tozer, is our “spiritual receptivity”. Some cultivate and feed and foster their spiritual awareness so they experience God, or better said, God makes Himself manifest to them. King David put it aptly, “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”

Tozer calls it receptivity. Simply, it’s the sensitivity to always know and feel that God is with us, in our presence. Our pursuit of God is dependent on this receptivity, which he writes can vary in intensity based upon our own true desire to see God’s face — not a desire of the mind, but one that is lived out in action. This receptivity can “be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect.”

Result of a lack of receptivity

Failure to seek and perceive God’s presence, according to the author, causes a breakdown in our churches. A deliberate and disciplined link with God requires a commitment of our lives, not just our time. It is often slow. Too slow for many Christians who, according to Tozer, are impatient to work for something they desire. He writes, “We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy.”

As lamentable as this sounds, there is hope if we return to the ways of the Bible. Tozer points to times in the past when great movements led people back to the Bible. But, it’s not the momentous events Tozer speaks of in his book, The Pursuit of God. It’s about the individual seeking the face of God. What this chapter and the book is trying to help us understand is simply this:

Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there.

In summary, the unprecedented fact of God’s universal presence is unquestionable. And He is there and willing to reveal Himself to us. We are created to be receptive to Him if we will only genuinely seek Him. This is what Tozer refers to as the pursuit of God. The perception and realization of God will only increase with our practice of the pursuit.

Tozer Made Easy - Part 4 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God: Chapter Four - Apprehending God

It’s clear from this chapter why some who read Tozer’s works call him a mystic — in the true and Christian sense of the word. For he has delved into and helped us understand the mystical elements of our relationship with God. It is apparent that he has experienced a close and profound connection with God and explains how that is available for every human in this fourth chapter.

As he has already demonstrated in the first three chapters, Tozer helps us understand a close personal relationship with the Creator of the universe is possible, and in fact, the Creator desires this. But, man fails to detect God and sense Him in a profound and spiritual way. Many acknowledge God’s existence, but “He remains personally unknown to the individual.” While man mostly admits God is somewhere, many do not believe in Him as knowable as we come to know our friends and loved ones or even our possessions.

Tozer does not leave this with the secular. He points out that many who claim Christ as Savior “go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.”

The scriptural doctrine, however, points out that God is waiting to be known by man in a real and a personal experience. Tozer writes about God, “Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestations.”

Tozer teaches that the words of the Bible assume a “self-evident fact that men can know God” with the same veracity and tangibility as any person or object that our senses detect.

How do we apprehend God?

The first thing to understand, according to Tozer, is that we are just as equipped to sense God as we are to sense the physical world. He writes, “We apprehend the physical world by exercising the faculties given us for the purpose, and we possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know God and the spiritual world if we will obey the Spirit’s urge and begin to use them.”

We’re born with these faculties, but sin clouds them and tarnishes them over to make us spiritually deaf, mute and blind. These faculties can be resuscitated by regeneration and by repentance. According to the author, this is one of the most precious gifts to come to us through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Tozer’s lament and hope for the church

In the author’s mind, he finds it difficult to understand why a believer would not want to stay in close contact with God in the spiritual realm through scriptures and in quiet communion. He acknowledges that it is the case, however. He explains that faith is what enables our spiritual senses. Therefore, Tozer writes, when faith is weak “the result will be inward insensibility and numbness” toward our spiritual walk with God.

The key, then, is for believers to humble themselves before God, acknowledge who He is and cease our self-reliant tendencies. Upon this repentance lay on a deep study of the word of God and our ability to commune with God in the spiritual realm will come alive again.

How do I know the realm is there?

Consider this. Tozer eloquently makes his point of chapter four this way. “A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here waiting our response to His Presence. This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality.”

What is real?

This is a question that has been pondered for centuries by uncommon minds. However, the true believer understands the answer to this question and is assured of the answer more so than some of the most famous philosophers in history. To use Tozer’s words, “God is real. All other reality is contingent upon His.” This chapter teaches us that God has objective existence independent of any thought we may have of Him. Our teacher writes, “The worshipping heart does not create its Object. It finds Him here when it wakes from its moral slumber in the morning of its regeneration.”

The author teaches in this chapter that we can reckon on the spiritual realm with as much assurance as we do the physical. “Spiritual things are there (or rather we should say here) inviting our attention.” But it is sin, Tozer indicates, that has made detecting spiritual things so difficult for us. To repeat Tozer’s metaphor, “Sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us.”

No distinction between spiritual and real

Tozer helps us understand that another part of our difficulties is that we often separate what we know as real from what is spiritual. He writes that there is no such distinction The spiritual realm is reality. It should be considered with as much confidence as the chair, the wind, a spouse or the color red.

What the author does distinguish between is the real and the imaginary. God is real, but unseen. There are unseen created beings in spiritual reality. The Holy Spirit communes with us in an unseen reality. Imagination builds images and assigns reality to them out of the mind. Faith, however, “simply reckons upon that which is already there.”

The corrective course of action is to shift our focus to the unseen reality. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “...for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Since God is the ultimate reality and all other realities are a result of God, then the spiritual realm is the object of “our holiest longing."

The spiritual realm is now

Tozer points out that Christians often think of the spiritual realm as something in their future. He writes, “It is not future, but present. It parallels our familiar physical world.” He quotes a text from Hebrews that Tozer points out is clearly in the present tense.

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”

This passage is making positive contrasts between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. Tozer uses it to point to the fact that the reality of Zion is around us and can “be grasped by the soul.” He adds, that our souls have eyes and ears, regardless of how out of use they may have become, that can see and hear this spiritual realm where God is the ultimate reality.

Life application

The author in this chapter has awakened the sleeping believer who trusts in the blood of Christ to redeem sins. Awakened to renew their focus upon God. The result of which will be an awareness of the things of the spirit. He paraphrases a text in the Gospel of John by writing, “Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead.”

The scriptures promise that those who seek Him will find God in His unseen reality. Tozer’s lesson says if we focus anew upon God, we will gain a more acute perception of God. “A new God-consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear and inwardly feel the God who is our life and our all.”

If believers only delve deeply into the scriptures, spend daily intimate time with the Lord, our ability to detect His presence, and understand His will for our lives, will be enhanced to a degree that is beyond description.

It sounds metaphysical. And it is. Our prejudice to deny things we cannot directly experience is a hindrance to our relationship with God. But those who repent of their sins, and seek God in the spiritual realm will find “More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives.”

Tozer Made Easy - Part 3 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God, Chapter Three: Removing the Veil

Tozer begins his third chapter with one of the most famous quotes in the history of man. He does this to ensure that there is no ambiguity about what he believes is the purpose of created man. Tozer quotes Augustine, “Thou has formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

He explains this as the origin of our kind because it’s critical to our understanding of our relationship with God. He echoes it in his own words, “God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say.”

All this is preamble to the point that we are created to be in a right relationship with God, but are guilty of sin. Our “foul revolt” broke this communion and man now lives alone outside of the “manifest Presence” of our heavenly Father. Or more metaphorically, a veil has been erected between us and our Lord because of our sin.

Tozer explains that the redemptive work of God is to “undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt and bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with Himself.”

Why is the veil there?

The veil was what separated the inner chamber of the tabernacle from the holy of holies where the very Presence of God above the mercy seat atop the arc of the covenant. The children of Israel did not have direct access to the holy of holies. They annually sent in the high priest to seek the atonement of his own sins and those of Israel from God. According to Tozer, this was the “beating heart of the Levitical order.” He helps us understand our condition by using the holy of holies and the separating veil and the Flame of the Presence of God as an identical description for us.

He writes, “At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence.”

Tozer encourages us to remove the veil so that we can know of His Presence not only intellectually, but, more importantly in our hearts, leading to a personal relationship with the Creator.

What will we find when we push through the veil? Tozer answers that God will uncover Himself in “ravishing fullness to the humble of soul and the pure in heart.”

It’s because we don’t push through as believers, that Tozer says we are at a serious loss in the world. “The world is perishing for a lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is famishing for want of His Presence.”

Yes, God is omnipresent. People can understand that intellectually. But, it’s the manifast Presence that we have fled like Adam or Peter after their great sins. However, it is the manifast Presence for which we should seek. This is a spiritual communion — man can know Him really in a “deep spirit” where his “fire must glow or his love is not the true love of God.”

The reason for pushing through

There is something expected when we remove the veil between ourselves and God. It is that communion with a God “so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”

This is the love of God to which Tozer refers. Our relationship with God is an ever overflowing satisfaction of our nature to the point of our hearts being fit to break with love for our God. He writes that it is believers with such breaking hearts who have looked with open eye and lived within the Presence.

The point here is that this level of access and relationship with God is available to us. Every believer has the same access to the Presence as the high priests did and the prophet who reports what he sees.

Sadly, Tozer writes that the church is at a loss for want of those who have removed the veil and entered into the company of the Creator. He tells us that “the church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with an inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience in the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God.”

Do we have access today?

As Tozer has already expressed, the joyous report is that every believer has access to God in the holy of holies. It was through the work of Christ on Calvary. Now there is nothing to keep us from His Presence. Nothing except our pride and sinful nature. Tozer asks, “Why do we tarry without? Why do we consent to abide all of our days just outside the holy of holies and never enter at all to look upon God?”

Scripture records for us that at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, the actual veil in the temple in Jerusalem was torn completely in two, forever revealing the holy of holies to all men. Why did God do this? Was it just to send a message to the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees? No, it is a clear message to all men, forever, that Christ has opened the way to the Father because of His shed blood, the atonement secured forever.

But why do we not all take this free gift from God? Tozer explains that it’s more than a cold heart, it is a veil over our own hearts. It’s a veil we must all tear from ourselves so that we do not hide the face of God from our own hearts. Tozer explains this as the veil of the self-life that hides our hearts from the joyous life that could be ours should we remove the veil once and for all. “Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction.”

To remove this veil will be painful as it is part of our fleshly life. It will tear living spiritual tissue to rend it from our hearts. But, as Tozer writes, “Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the selflife, and then reckon it crucified.”

When this is done, like labor pains, it will be a faint memory. “After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered, in actual spiritual experience, the Presence of the living God.”

Worship of the Eternal God - Part 3 of 3

by Paul Fritz

In this final installment of our discussion of worship, we discuss less about what worship is, but how it impacts us. The key text is Hebrews 13:15. “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”

There are numerous benefits of praise that are overlooked by many. Those who appropriate them are enriched, empowered and enabled by the Spirit of God to experience higher levels of Christlike transformation, fruitfulness and blessings.

1. Lighter Loads and Less Frustration - People who praise God for His power, sovereignty and omnipotence do not have to carry around excess burdens and frustrations. When we praise God during times of distress, disappointment or difficulty we are able to completely give all the weight of adverse circumstances to the Lord’s care. When we praise God for His mighty power we acknowledge that we are weak and He is strong. Praise helps us realize that He is able to take us through dark valleys and bring us through according to His will.

2. Lessened Guilt - Those who praise God are released from the burden of guilt when they experience the freedom of God’s forgiveness and cleansing from all our unrighteousness. Praising God for His ability to free us from the tyranny and power of sin enables us to give up our negativity toward ourselves and others as well. Praising God helps us realize that He purifies, perfects and cleanses us through the blood of Christ.

3. Lessened Judgmentalism - Greater praise helps us realize that we too easily become disappointed with ourselves and others because of our critical sinful nature. When we praise God it helps us realize that judgment is the Lord’s and not our business. Praise helps us remember that if we sin we do so to the Lord and He will repay to each for what they have done. We can leave all judgment to the Lord to recompense everyone justly.

4. Lessened Complaints - When we praise God for who He is and what He has done we reduce the tendency to murmur and complain about our hurt feelings. Praise reinvigorates us with a renewed sense of appreciation for how He helps us overcome evil instead of allowing evil to overcome us. Praise has a way of soothing our hurt feelings and minimizing our self-pity. Paul learned how to be content in every circumstance because He knew that He could praise God for the promise, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:13)

5. Lessened Stress - People who consistently praise God are less apt to complain about God’s training methods. When we praise God we will be more submissive, content and yielded to His will. When we are suffering from pain we find that praise alleviates our tendency to give in to feelings of bitterness, fear or anger. Praise has a way of releasing us from our sinful desire to take control back from the Lord. By praising God for His sovereignty we are saying, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2) Praise alleviates our anxiety as we allow our hearts and minds to remain in Christ.

6. Lessened Weakness - Praising God gives us greater confidence in His ability to be greater than any problem. Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” (I John 4:4) Praise gives us greater intimacy with the God who is greater than any person, problem or circumstance we may face.

7. Lessened Uncertainty - When we praise God we have a renewal of all His blessed assurances. Paul wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” (Eph. 1:3) Praise helps us be reminded of the unlimited resources we have in Christ.

8. Lessened Need to Understand - When we praise God we are less insistent on our right to know why certain things happen to us. We are less apt to react with anger, bitterness or worry when we turn all our perplexities over to the Lord. Paul wrote, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing ... always carrying about in the body of the dying Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” (2 Cor. 4:8-10) People who praise God do not feel the need to understand why adversity falls on the wicked and righteous alike. Let us praise God that He has the capacity to cause “all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Rom. 8:28)

9. Lessened Need to Depend on Our Own Resources - We can praise God and experience less of a need to rely on ourselves, our resources and our people because we know the promise is true, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:19) When we are not feeling confident or self-assured we can praise God that He gives us the wherewithal to accomplish everything He asks of us. You will never lack anything if you praise God for His enabling ability to take you through every trial and make you better for it.

10. Lessened Need to Feel in Control - Praising God helps us gain greater confidence in God’s ability to take us through any dark valley. We do not have to pretend to be such a self-sufficient, rugged individual or stoic. We do not have to plague ourselves with questions like, “What did I do wrong?” Some things are beyond our ability to control. We do not always have to analyze all the reasons why things did not go perfectly. Sometimes we set ourselves up for disappointment when we fail to say like Job, “Even though He slay me yet will I praise Him.” Praising God recognizes that He is sovereign, loving and perfectly in control of all our circumstances. We do not have to judge our circumstances knowing that He is sovereign in every situation.

Let us follow the admonition of David who wrote, “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boasts in the Lord; the humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.” (Psa 34:1-4)

Is your church becoming secular?

by Pastor Matt Slick

"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age," (Titus 2:11-12).

What does a secular church look like? Would it be easy to find one? Would we know one if we saw one? Then again, maybe you attend a secular church and don't know it. It is certainly possible, but how would you know? How would you recognize a church that is more secular than sacred?

Like any counterfeit, the best way to recognize the secular is to be familiar with the sacred. That is why dedication to God's word is so important. The Christian church focuses on being fed out of God's word and seeks to align itself with what it says. The secular church allows the ways of the world to seep into the beliefs and practices of the Christian church thereby diluting the truth.

If we find something in the church that is contrary to scripture but is taught in the secular world, then that church has become, in part, secularized. The more we find from the world in the church, the more that church is secularized.

Following is a list of things that, in my opinion, are examples of secularization in the church. Of course, this list is not exhaustive nor is it authoritative. It is my opinion. Nevertheless, it is offered as food for thought.

Teaching that the Bible is not inspired and inerrant

The Bible is the word of God (2 Tim. 3:16) and is the measure of truth and righteousness. To claim that it is not inspired is to reduce it to the level of the Quran, or the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Book of Mormon which are mere man-made writings posing as inspired words from God.

When the authority of God's word is lost, then man-made doctrines creep in. The authority and inspiration of scripture is the anchor that keeps the church from drifting into error.

Using books instead of the Bible in Bible study

It is okay to use books that assist in Bible study, but the Bible should be the central source of spiritual truth, not books about the Bible. If Bible studies are using guidebooks more than the Bible itself, then the Bible has been moved to a secondary position. If Christians are having trouble understanding God's word, then the pastor (or Bible study leader) needs to teach them how to find its truths so they can check all things in scripture by themselves (Acts 17:11).

Teaching that there is more than one way to God besides Jesus

In this world of relativism, it is not popular to claim that Jesus is the only way to be saved. But this is what the Bible says. John 14:6, "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." Also, Acts 4:12, "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved." There is no other way to be saved. The Muslims, the Buddhists, the Taoists, etc., cannot be saved without Jesus.

Being embarrassed to say that Jesus is the only way to salvation

Like the issue above, Jesus is the only way (John 14:6). Christians should never be ashamed (Rom. 1:16) to speak the truth of God's saving work in Christ. For some, to be timid and embarrassed means that one's eyes are off of God and onto people.

Teaching that there is no absolute right and wrong

As mentioned above, moral relativism is the norm of society. We often hear, "It is true if it is true for you." The
Bible tells us that there are moral absolutes independent of what we think is right. Exodus 20:1-17 is a list of the ten commandments which are moral absolutes. The Bible teaches us there is absolute right and wrong. Without moral absolutes, no one can say anything is right or wrong.

Being careful to not offend anyone at the expense of biblical truth

Whether or not someone likes what the Bible says does not change the truth of the Bible. We should not be offensive just to be offensive, but we should not be afraid to speak the truth of God when the need arises. The gospel that offends no one is not the gospel of the Bible.

Pastors preaching moralism instead of Christ centered messages

Moralistic preaching is preaching that does not focus on the cross of Christ. For example, we do not try and be good because being good is nice. We try and be good because Jesus saved us from our sins and doing what is
right glorifies Him. Preaching that is not focused on the cross is not preaching. It is a waste of time.

Approving of homosexuality

Homosexuality is being accepted as normal all over the world. It should not be accepted as normal in the Church. Homosexuality is a sin (1 Cor. 6:9). It is wrong. But this does not mean we are to hate homosexuals. We are to pray for them and their repentance. Homosexuals are not to be pastors or elders in churches.

Approving of women elders

This one may offend a lot of people, but the Bible teaches that the elder is to be the husband of one wife. This is not merely a cultural norm of the time. It is what the Bible teaches.

Not condemning the sins of society

If at all possible and according to wisdom, Christians should not be intimidated by the world when it comes to condemning sin. Sometimes, when Christian pastors condemn a sin in the world, like abortion, they are attacked. Truth is not silenced by complaining voices. We do not answer to them. We answer to God.

Psychology as an authority on human nature

The Bible tells us that people are sinners by nature, selfish, prideful, and in need of the saving work of God. The Bible tells us what is right and wrong regarding child rearing, criminal behavior, actions, and words. Psychology can give us insights on many things, but if it contradicts God's word, it is wrong. We need to accept the fact that God is the authority on man, not the psychologists.

Use of politically correct terms of the world from the pulpit where those terms replace biblical values and truths

Is a wife or husband a "partner?" Are Christians who condemn homosexuality "homophobes?" Is it correct to say a woman can kill the baby in her womb and call it "abortion rights" when discussing "reproductive rights"? Is accepting false theologies called "diversity awareness?" If such words and terms become the common vocabulary of the pulpit without qualification or explanation, then the preacher is adopting the terms of the world and not of God and by it he is slowly being seduced by the world.

Going to church as a social habit

Church is not a social club where politically correct ideas are tried and tested. It is not a place we go to voice our opinions so that others can hear our wisdom. It is the place where we go to learn, to be corrected, to grow and to encounter God who is not made after our own image.

Prayer as a last resort

To seek to accomplish things in life without God, whether it be big or small, is to say we do not need God and to proclaim our independence from Him. To resort to prayer as a last resort is to exclude God from the beginning of our work and to proclaim our independence from Him. Prayer is the first resort. It is the world that operates without God, not the Christian.

Missionaries not sent out or supported

Missionary efforts needlessly curtailed. If a church cannot support a missionary effort because of legitimate circumstances, that is one thing. But, if it can and it does not specifically reach out to the world with the gospel, then it is disobeying God's word (Matt. 28:18-20).

Divorce statistics as common as secular society

What a horrible failure this is that the Christians have the same divorce rate as the unchurched. Undoubtedly, this is due to the secularization of the heart.

Evolution

Either not condemning evolution or not taking a stand on it.

Is your church (or small group) becoming secular? Are you? If either, start praying, repent of anything you believe or do that is contrary to scripture. Start praying for your church and study God's word. Let it be your guide.

Pastor Slick is President of Christian Apologetics and Resources Ministry where you can contact him at www.CARM.org and is author of the book, Right Answers for Wrong Beliefs.