Minimizing the Gospel and Trivializing the Gospel

So today I am sitting home sick, not working. So I got onto my laptop and started perusing the internet. I always check the Christian Index. One of their top stories shocked me a bit. Ronnie Hill a prominent evangelist created a website called www.threeminutestory.com/church.php. If someone were to watch this three minute gospel presentation, they can register to win a new car.

I have some serious problems with this method, but first let me say two things. I am not criticizing Ronnie Hill as a person, or even his motives and intentions, because I cannot judge his heart. What I can judge is his methods. As far as I can tell, Jesus never offered any monetary or earthly incentives in Scripture to follow him. Jesus never said, "Listen to me preach and I will give you two hundred denarii." I pastor a real small church with filled with low income senior adult couples. They all have burdens on their heart. However, if the church doesn't numerically grow, then in fifteen to twenty years, it will cease to exist. I am sure that I can come up with some incentive to come to church, to listen to the gospel, or to read a certain book of the Bible. I am sure I could offer a $200 giveway to anyone who comes to church consecutively for a month. But the truth is, these type of gimmicks, and that is exactly what they are, trivialize the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostles proclaimed, "Come to Jesus, and find remission for your sins!" Not come to Jesus, for some monetary or phyical benefit. Ronnie Hill responds to people like me who disagree with his methods:

“I don’t care what people’s motives are for signing up for the car, just that they hear the truth,” Hill said. “People came to Jesus in the Bible for the wrong reasons, such as to be healed, for free food, or to be entertained. But Jesus still told them the truth.”

Certainly, natural man's motives for coming to Christ will be sinful as Hill says above. But that does not warrant using wrong motives and unbiblical methods to get people to hear the gospel. Natual man, whom the Holy Spirit has not prepared to hear and recieve the gospel, will come to Christ for the wrong reasons. What if I knew a man who had a problem with pornography and offered him a playboy if he would give me five minutes to share a stripped down version of the gospel to him? You know what, he would listen, and he might even profess faith, if that means Jesus will give him what his heart desires.

Now certainly, a car is more useful than a playboy, and a car isn't inherently sinful, but our world is driven by materialism. Humanistic philosophy pervades our world and our church. We are using people's natural desires, and in fact feeding their natural desires to listen to the gospel. What if we just began a conversation with someone and shared the fullness of the truth of the gospel? Would that be so bad?

Second, this gospel presentation lasts only three minutes. Sure, Ronnie Hill hits some key components of the gospel, but the fullness of the gospel cannot be shared in three minutes. Paul spent years sharing the gospel with people. I doubt Paul went to Mar's Hill for just three minutes, and I doubt Peter took only a few minutes of everyone's time at Pentecost, and I doubt Philip expalined the book of Isaiah to the Ethiopian Eunuch, in just three minutes. I doubt Ananais spent three minutes with Paul in his evangelistic encounter. Certainly, it only takes a matter of seconds to read through these passages of Scripture, but the apostles could never be accused of stipping away valuable information of the gospel. They presented the fullness of the gospel when they shared it, which can never be done in a matter of minutes. However, Ronnie Hill has fallen into the modern evangelism trap like everyone else. Hit and Run evangelism, use some sort of appeal to get a response, promise a life of blessing, have an invitation, see thousands flood the altar, but only a few sprinkle the church. When the apostles shared the gospel, thousands were truly saved, when we use this modernized, minimized, trivialized, materialized version of the gospel, thousands may immediately respond with a profession, but how many of those are actually true believers who bear any real, genuine fruit? My guess is very few.

I am passionate about biblical evangelism, but you will never see me use these type of gimmicks to get people to follow Christ. These methods have no place in biblical evangelism.

A New Year, and Old Book, and an Eternal Hope

Today begins a new year. 2008 has come and gone, and 2009 has just begun. What will the year bring? For me, it will be the first full year of my first pastorate, a marriage, and other things. But this new year, we must continue to turn to the ancient book of Scripture. Charles Spurgeon began his evening by evening devotional with a portion from Song of Solomon 1:4. We will be glad and rejoice in thee." He is amazing and pulling out great truths from so few words. As I read this my heart was touched. First, we must be resolved. We Will....rejoice. We must, with an act of the will, and a determination of the mind, rejoice. We must be resolved to rejoice. We always make new years resolutions like losing weight, managing money better, and stuff like that, but as Christians we must be resolved to rejoice. What are we to rejoice about. Rejoice in "Thee." Rejoice in the Redeemer. We must rejoice in Christ, because all that he has done for us, and all that he is on our behalf.

Also, I read Psalm 1 today. How often do I, even as a Christian and minister, walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the path of sinners, and sit in the seat of scoffers. This three statement pattern shows a complaceny in sin. You walk, you stop and stand, and then you sit down in your sin, comfortable and complacent with your sinful lifestyle. Christian brothers and sisters, lament with me this morning that we often are influenced by the sin stained world around us and join with them in the most grevious of sins. How to we remedy this? First, we repent. We get up, and walk away. But we must have another resolution. Psalm 1:2 calls us to delight in the law of the Lord, and to meditate on it day and night. We must find our delight in God's Word, but not only that to think about it all the time and let it affect our minds and our hearts. Only then, will we be like a tree planted firmly by streams of water producing fruit. Only then when we are saturating ourselves with scripture will we produce fruits of righteousness and stop sitting in the seat of scoffers.

Friends, I do wish you a happy and joyous new year, but be resolved to rejoice in the redeemer, and be resolved to delight and meditate on the Word of God, and to trust in the Eternal Hope we have in Jesus Christ!

The Downward Spiral of Christian Book Stores

I am home for Christmas in Georgia, and I had to do some last minute Christmas shopping. I went over to the local Christian bookstore, and it took me longer than I had hoped, because I could hardly find anything worth buying.

I am a student at Southern Baptist Seminary, and the Lifeway on campus has got to be the best Christian book store ever. It has two whole shelves of Christian Theology, an entire section for commentaries, and a whole shelf for Banner of Truth material. Also there is a whole rack of CD's filled with Sovereign Grace and Indelible Grace Music.

At the book store back home, the moment you walk in you see Victoria Osteen's new book. Instead of two shelves of theology, there are two shelves labeled, "Charismatic Interest." There is only one small shelf of commentaries, most which were pretty good. There was nothing by R.C Sproul, Piper, or Mohler. There was one book by Mark Driscoll, and one book by C.J. Mahaney, a few books from John MacArther were there.

Why am I devoting a whole post to my bookstore experience? Well those of us ministers who believe theology is important, and want our people to understand the Bible correctly, you need to understand what they are reading. No doubt, they are getting spiritual crap from their local bookstore. They might be reading MacArthur's "The Gospel According to Jesus" but they are also reading Joel Osteen's "Becoming a Better You." Then they fuse those two together and get some bi-polar form of Christianity. The people in the pews just don't get it. You may be a faithful preacher of the gospel, but your messages are likely not correcting their false views and heretical influences, but rather they are just throwing your preaching into their theological blendor to see what kind of spiritual concoction they can come up with. So, what do we do?

First, give them some good books to read. If they aren't getting good books at their bookstore, they need to come from the church or the pastor. You may not be able to give them all books, but buy some for your church, and let the members borrow them and read them.

Second, verbally address current false teachers and false views. Reveal Joel Osteen's false teachings. Speak up about Joyce Meyer. Point out the absurdities of some of these end time fanatics.

Third, Quote from some solid authors of today and of history. Quote John Piper and Charles Spurgeon in your sermons. Quote Mark Driscoll and John Bunyon. Let them hear from C.J. Mahaney and William Perkins. When they hear names they are not used to, perhaps they will look them up. When I was a youth pastor, we talked a great deal about Spurgeon, and one of the church members went and bought tons of Spurgeon books.

Fourth, Pray for Discernment. Pray that God would give your flock a spirit of discernment to know truth from error.

Our members are getting shoddy spiritual resources and we need to help them grow in the truth! Be Blessed!

The Thirsty Land

In Isaiah 44, It reads,

Thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you.
Do not fear, O Jacob, My servant, And you Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants, and they will spring up among the grass like poplars by streams of water."

This Scripture should comfort the lives of God's People. God created and formed us, and says he will help his chosen people. Often times there are times we may fear our circumstances, but God gives a great promise to his church here in this passage.

1. God will provide what is necessary. "I will our out water on dry ground." Whatever is needed, God will take care of his children. Do not fear, God will provide.
2. God will pour out his Spirit. Perhaps you have fallen into sin, and you heart is dry ground. You need the water of God's word poured into your life, and you need an outpouring of God's Spirit in your life. God promises just that. He promises to pour out his Spirit, and when his SPirit is poured out upon a believer, he experiences the fullness of God's Blessings.

Are you going through a difficult time in your life? Trust God to be your help, and to give you the necessary provisions you need. Ask God to pour out the water of his Word into your heart, and pour out his Spirit onto your life. God will bless you, and has blessed you by sending Christ to die for your sins. Trust in Christ, and seek spiritual blessings that can only come from the hand of God!

The Water and The Fire

Life is not always easy. In fact, life is difficult most of the time. My fiance and I are excited about getting married, but we are experiencing some problems during this whole process. This weekend has been a difficult weekend for me. I have been discouraged this weekend by some difficulties in my life. For the most part, life is amazing at this moment. I am pastoring my first church, and I am marring the most amazing woman of God in June! I can't be happier. The path of life still has its bumps and curves that can get my mind off of all that God is doing in my life. Satan will do everything he can to steal away our joy. As I was reading my Bible this morning during my devotional time, God brought a verse of Scripture to my mind.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.
For I am the LORD your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Through challenging times, God promises to be with us, and promises that we will not be destroyed be difficult circumstances. Friends, if you feel as if you are going through the fire, or that you are in the waters over your head, remember that God is with you. Remember that the rivers will not over flow you, and the flame will not burn you. Sure, deep waters and flaming fire are not fun, but God protects us and his presence is with us through the most difficult times in our lives! Be Blessed!

Thankful for God's Blessings

Today was thanksgiving. Today was a wonderful day of giving thanks to God. As I look back on the previous year, so much has happened. I had struggled financially a bit, and now the Lord has blessed me by giving me a few different raises at work. Second, I strongly desired a place to serve, and I got to preach regularly to students this summer as a youth intern, and yesterday I just got voted into my first pastorate. But most importantly, when I moved to seminary, I was pretty fatalistic about my chances of meeting a godly woman to marry. Well, God provides. I met a wonderful, extremely beautiful, godly woman named Allison Brewton through Ninth and O Baptist where we were members at the time. We soon began dating, and have been dating for almost a year now. Well, today we got engaged and will be getting married in June! I am so excited and am so blessed to be marrying such a godly woman. She certainly models the Proverbs 31 woman, and will make a an excellent wife and tremendous mother one day. This thanksgiving I am particularly thankful for the ministry in which God has placed me, and my wonderful, gorgeous fiance!

My First Pastorate

Greetings in the Lord! Yesterday afternoon I was voted in as Pastor of Plum Creek Baptist Church in Vevay, In. Allison and I have been going there for over a month, and I have preached a few times there, and they have now called my to be their pastor. It is a small congregation of about 15 people, but they are a very loving congregation, and have a real genuine fellowship with one another that is lacking in most churches. They are not a Southern Baptist Church, but American Baptist. However, they are conservative in their beliefs. They aren't like the majority of the denomination that is open to homosexuals. However, due to some wise counsel of some godly friends, they wisely reminded me that the gospel crosses denominational lines. The gospel of our Lord Jesus isn't confined to the SBC. This church needed a shepherd. I hope that I can simply be someone to point them to the true Shepherd, Jesus Christ. Pray for me as I lead this people, and pray for Allison as she is making sacrifices to be along side of me in ministry. She loves it, but I know it will present challenges for her as well. Thank you and Be Blessed!