Evangelical Reformation

We tend to see fear in a totally negative light. As noted in our last message, fear can be a destructive emotion. However, the Bible asserts that some fear is necessary and beneficial. How so?

In Proverbs 1:7, Solomon teaches us, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.”

Consider the importance of knowledge to your life and wellbeing. If fear really is the fountainhead of knowledge, fear is of vital importance—it is a source of great blessing.

But what is the connection between fear and knowledge?

The relationship between the two begins with the unflattering reality that we are all inclined to pursue the various forms of self-gratification. John summarizes these as the lust of the flesh and eyes and the pride of life. We all crave the good feelings that stem from these sources.

Sometimes this gratification is legitimate. A good meal or making love with one’s spouse are God-given sources of pleasure.

However, we tend not to be satisfied with self-gratification only when God says it is okay. We desire it whenever we can get it. People tend to eat too much or desire pleasure from someone who is not their spouse, even it that entails an indiscrete analysis of the anatomy of an indiscrete NFL cheerleader.

Since God’s Word tells us where those boundaries are, why do we need fear to gain knowledge? We can get knowledge right out of the Bible, and we can also glean it from observing what does and does not work in life.

Well, that’s true as far as it goes. That is the way it should be. However, this does not consider the human malady cited above. The reality is that our thirst for gratification incites us to rationalize.

I can easily give you five reasons why I should eat that second piece of chocolate cake. The hostess made it especially for me, and I want her to know how much I appreciate it. Or the second coming may occur tomorrow, in which case I would have missed the opportunity needlessly. Etc.

If they sound like a stretch, I guarantee you that both of us have employed rationalizations more idiotic than those and really believed them to be valid at the time. And as time goes on those irrational rationalizations become well-established principles for living.

In other words, we have corrupted knowledge. We are guiding our lives based on lies devised by our rationalization and that of other people. Our favorite Bible teachers are those who can validate our rationalizations with Scripture.

This is where fear helps us. It keeps us from trifling with God’s Word. If we really believe that God deals severely with those who bend His teachings to enable self-gratification, we tend to be more honest with His Word. In other words, we develop a worldview based on genuine knowledge rather than self-serving lies.

In contemporary society, when Christians legitimize watching movies containing nudity or assert that it is okay to be angry with God, they manifest a lot of truth bending that reveals the absence of fear.

Though fear may be an unpleasant emotion, it would clear their heads, straighten out their worldviews, and save them a lot of trouble in the long run.

Next week’s topic addresses another benefit of fear.

The virtual Christianity embraced by most American evangelicals constitutes a bubble that is about to burst.

In my previous post, I compared contemporary evangelical Christianity to a nanny state. A majority segment of evangelical radio, television, and books describes a relationship between the believer and God in which God accepts us unconditionally. Therefore, as with a governmental nanny state, we get all the benefits and have no responsibilities.

I further described this arrangement as virtual Christianity, since it finds no reality in Scripture or in real life. Hundreds of passages expose its error. Many of my previous posts demonstrate the error of this perspective.

This virtual Christianity is problematic on any number of counts. One of its major faults is its inability to produce strong Christians, strong men, strong fathers, strong leaders.

Europe provides a graphic display of the inability of nanny states to produce strong leadership. They stand idly by as Muslims take over their countries, either feeling impotent to do anything about it or not caring. Both are signs of weakness.

Feeling impotent is an evident indication of weakness. Standing by, wringing one’s hands, while others invade and take over their supposedly sovereign states, is not a picture of strength.

Not caring represents an even greater weakness. It reflects the deterioration of the soul described by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, which leaves the inner person caring for nothing by self-gratification. Socialistic Europe is willing to have Islam take over in the future if it can have its state supported short workweek and long vacations in the present.

We find the evangelical church in America, with its nanny state, producing the same weakness of character. It is reflected in our President’s lack of resolve in protecting our borders. It is reflected in the fact that of the strongest leaders on the horizon, most are Catholics or Mormons, and few are evangelicals. It is reflected in many of the characteristics of the evangelical church uncovered by Barna.

Several days ago on a Christian radio program, a man who had been converted from Islam was asked why Christian women marry Muslim men, a good question, especially in light of the many serious downsides of doing so. His answer was that these women view Christian men as wimps, while they find a strength in Muslim men.

Why does a nanny state, be it political or spiritual, produce wimps? The answer is simply this: the stronger ones cause, the stronger ones personality.

Muslims may be misguided, but they believe that they have a cause worth dying for. This gives them a strength lacking in the West, both in secular and evangelical circles. While they are blowing themselves up for their cause, we (both secular Americans and evangelicals) are preoccupied with the latest movie—another expedition into our world of virtual reality.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently pronounced that the United States is a sunset civilization whereas Iran is a sunrise civilization. Judging from the strengths of personality of each, I tend to agree with him.

Many of the experts predict that catastrophe will soon fall on the United States—another 9/11, or even worse. We are like the population in Brave New World, living in virtual reality, both spiritual and otherwise, unaware and unconcerned that the enemy is about to burst our virtual bubble.

The solution must begin with the church trading in the comforts of its nanny state, it’s virtual reality, for biblical reality, for the recognition that God demands righteousness from his people and will judge them if they do not produce it.

I believe that the church in America ultimately will break out of its bubble of virtual reality. The question is what that will take. Will the preaching and teaching of the Word of God bring us to reality, or will it take a horrible disaster?

9/11 woke us up—for about a week. Apparently it will take something far worse than that. That leads to the follow-up question. By the time something sufficiently terrible to get our attention comes along, will it be too late to salvage life in America as we know it?

Today’s American evangelical church leaves us with the impression that pleasing God is not hard at all.

A major result of salvation is that it is easy for the believer to please God. In fact, he is pleasing to God just as he is, regardless of what that is. After all, he is created in the image of God, is so loved and valued that Christ died for him, and now is a child of God.

Just as significant, when God looks on him, he doesn’t see his performance, He sees His Son, Jesus, with whom He is well pleased. Therefore, God is pleased with him just as he is—unconditionally.

As the contemporary evangelical mantra goes, “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more and nothing you can do to make God love you less.”

These sentiments are reflected in other slogans also. For example, “It is okay to be angry with God.” In other words, even when I am unhappy with something God has done or not done, and reflect my displeasure in my attitude and even words and actions, He is still pleased with me.

Or there is, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” You see, God through Christ disassociates me from my behavior, so that He might not like the way I act, but that doesn’t change His attitude toward me.

Then there is “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” The “perfect” word comes up a lot in evangelical conversation, and it is very convenient. Surely God doesn’t expect any of us to be perfect, and therefore He must be pleased with me even when I am not. That is a handy rationale, since “not perfect” covers all of our behavior from chewing gum in church to living with my girlfriend. The good news is that God is okay with our not being perfect.

Ask about any evangelical today, and they will tell you that pleasing God is easy. I just have to be me. What more could God want.

Of course, none of the above is rooted in valid exegesis of Scripture, not even the part about God hating the sin but loving the sinner. Though I do not have time to go into all of these issues in this post, the fact is that there are lots of passages that convey that God is hard to please.

He apparently is not please with those who take the broad way, but only happy with those who choose the narrow way. He is not pleased with those who choose to ignore the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, instead building their house on the sand.

Psalm 1 conveys that He is pleased with those who delight in His law and meditate on it day and night, but He is not pleased with the wicked, i.e. those who do not do so.

In Luke 14:27, Jesus says, “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” (Someone can try to make the point that this does not mean that Jesus is displeased with those do not take up His cross. It is that sort of desperate rationale that has brought the evangelical community in America to its present sad condition.)

Or there is 1Peter 3:12 that asserts that the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Or James 4:4, (which, by the way is written to Christians) indicating that anyone who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.

Paul states the case from the positive perspective in 2Corinthians 5:9 by stating, “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.” Apparently he did not think that pleasing God was a given. Rather, it was a goal to be pursued.

Likewise, he tells us in Romans 14:17-18, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things [is] acceptable to God and approved by men.” Maintaining a lifestyle characterized by those qualities is a tall order.

Well, it might be protested, doesn’t that means we have to be perfect to please God—the point of such a protest being to debunk the theory. “Since we can’t be perfect, you must be wrong.” The fact is that we don’t need to be perfect to please God. The proof next time.