The Dangers Of A Self Centered Gospel

I found this video on Purgatorio and had to share it. It is an emotional video to be sure but watch it and then read my comments afterward.



Notice what this man puts in each slide, "I did this,""I did that," every slide is about what he did never once is God and what He has done mentioned. This is very sad to have spent 33 years relying on oneself to save oneself must truly have been a lonely journey. No wonder he is bitter, nothing he did could save himself. I encourage everyone to pray for this man but I would like to point out one other thing. Why did this man grow up in a Christian home, attend college, join the ministry, read his Bible and never once see that salvation is of the Lord? Because the Holy Spirit never opened his eyes to the truth. So while we should continue in prayer for him do not forget the words of Paul in Romans 9:

"22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles."
New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update, Ro 9:22-24 (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995).

Please never forget the riches of His glory He has made known to us. The reason some never believe is for the benefit of the ones who do, so that we will all the more praise and worship the God who saved us and deserves all glory.

In Christ
Alan

Providence Is A Wonderful Thing

Just when I was thinking about looking into a way of posting audio files on my blog I happen to visit the Captain's blog and find this BOX thingy in his sidebar. So I went ahead and stole it and put it on my sidebar. It's a neat little widget that actually lets me upload audio files that can then be played from my blog. I put up three sermons from my pastor in St. Louis, Scott Churnock. He is one of the best expositors of Scripture I have ever heard and I think more people need to hear him. Don't worry, he does not visit my blog so there is no danger of him getting a big head. There is a 10mb limit so I had to pick sermons less than that, which is no mean feat when one is sifting through sermons by a reformed pastor. If anyone is interested he just finished sermon 95 and is just finishing Romans 8 and I have them all. I will gladly provide an itunes link for any who are interested.

True Worship, Divine Worship, and John Owen.

The issue of Church and worship has come up in several blogs I read regularly in recent days. It is an issue close to my heart as I had to look into this as I underwent my identity crisis in the last few years. I acquired the works of John Owen from my pastor today and was reading the first volume on the way home (my wife was driving) when I came across the quote I include in this post. It seems clear to me that we should not include things in our worship that we find appealing, that elicit emotional responses only(such as drama/skits, nowhere do we see this done in scripture yet the art form existed), or that we just "feel" good about. We are still in our corrupted minds and our fallen nature can, and often will, be wrong. I commented on another blog about not forgetting the Old Testament when we consider how we should worship. The Bible is one story from start to finish. It is the historical-redemptive story of God and His people. In the Old Testament people died when they worshiped in ways they thought were good but were not. There is great evidence for the regulative principal in worship, and if we stray outside of it we enter dangerous territory.

John Owen entered university at the age of 12, and I do not think I can say it any better than he did:

"They [believers] will receive nothing, practice nothing, own nothing in His worship, but what is of His appointment. They know that from the foundation of the world he never did allow, nor ever will, that in any thing the will of the creatures should be the measure of his honor, or the principle of His worship, either as to matter or manner. It was a witty and true sense that one gave of the Second Commandment, 'Non image, non simulachrum prohibetur, sed, non facies tibi;' — it is a making to ourselves, an inventing, a finding out ways of worship, or means of honoring God, not by him appointed, that is so severely forbidden. Believers know what entertainment all will-worship finds with God. 'Who has required this at your hand?' and, 'In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the traditions of men,' is the best it meets with I shall take leave to say what is upon my heart, and what (the Lord assisting) I shall willing endeavor to make good against all the world, — namely, that that principle, that the church has power to institute and appoint any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God, either as to matter or to manner, beyond the orderly observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself has instituted, lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution, and wars, that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world; and that it is the design of a great part of the Book of the Revelation to make a discovery of this truth.


"And I doubt not but that the great controversy which God has had with this nation for so many years, and which he has pursued with so much anger and indignation, was upon this account, that, contrary to the glorious light of the Gospel, which shone among us, the wills and fancies of men, under the name of order, decency, and authority of the church (a chimera that none knew what it was, not wherein the power did consist, nor in whom reside), were imposed on men in the ways and worship of God. Neither was all that pretense of glory, beauty, comeliness, and conformity, that then was pleaded, any thing more or less than what God does so describe in the Church of Israel, Ezek 16:25, and forward. Hence was the Spirit of God in prayer derided, — hence was the powerful preaching of the gospel despised, — hence was the Sabbath-day decried, — hence was holiness stigmatized and persecuted. To what ends that Jesus Christ might be deposed from the sole power of lawmaking in his church, — that the true husband might be thrust aside, and adulterers of his spouse embraced, — that taskmasters might be appointed in and over his house, which he never gave to his church, Eph 4:11, — that a ceremonious, pompous, outward show-worship, drawn from Pagan, Judaical, and Antichristian observances, might be introduced; of all which there is not one word, little, or iota in the whole book of God. This, then, they who hold communion with Christ are careful of, — they will admit nothing, practice nothing, in the worship of God, private or public, but what they have his warrant for. Unless it comes in his name, with 'Thus saith the Lord Jesus,' they will not hear an angel from heaven."
John Owen "On Communion With God" pp. 309-310

John Owen on Worship

Question 2 — By what means do we come to know that God will thus be worshipped?

Answer — That God is to be worshipped, and that according to his own will and appointment, is ^a a principal branch of the law of our creation written in our hearts, the ^b sense whereof is renewed in the second commandment; but the ways and means of that worship depend merely on God’s ^c sovereign pleasure and institution.

a Rom. i. 21, ii. 14, 15 ; Acts xiv. 16, 17, xvii. 23-31 .
b Exod. xx. 4-6 .
c Jer. vii. 31 ; Exod. xxv. 40 ; Heb. iii. 1-6 ; John i. 18 .

Explication — These two things all men saw by nature:—

First, That God, however they mistook in their apprehensions of him, would be, and was to be, worshipped with some outward solemn worship; so that although some are reported to have even cast off all knowledge and sense of a Divine Being, yet never any were heard of that came to an acknowledgment of any God, true or false, but they all consented that he was constantly and solemnly to be worshipped, and that not only by individual persons , but by societies together; that so they might own and honour him whom they took for their God. And thus far outward worship is required in the first commandment, — namely, that the inward be exercised and expressed. When we take God for our God, we take him to worship him, Deut. x. 12, 13 . Other thoughts, — namely, of inward worship without outward expression, at all or any time, or in any way, — are but a covert unto atheism. And, —

Secondly, This also they were led to an apprehension of by the same light whereby they are “a law unto themselves,” Rom. ii. 14 , that God would be worshipped in the way and by the means that he himself appointed and approved: whence none among the heathen themselves undertook to appoint ways and ceremonies of worship, but still they pretended to derive the knowledge of them from the gods themselves ; of whom they reckoned that every one would be worshipped in his own way. And because, notwithstanding this pretence, being left of God and deluded of Satan, they did invent false and foolish ways of worship, not only not appointed of God, but such as were unsuited unto those inbred notions which they had of his nature and excellencies, the apostle convinces and disproves them, as men acting against the light of nature and principles of reason, Rom. i. 20, 21 , they might have seen that in their idolatry they answered not their own inbred conceptions of the divine power and Godhead, so as to “glorify him as God;” and in the like manner doth he argue at large, Acts xvii. 22-31 . But beyond this the inbred light of nature could not conduct any of the sons of men; this alone is contained in the first precept. That God was to be worshipped they knew, and that he was to be worshipped by ways and means of his own appointment they knew; but what those means were they knew not. These always depended on God’s sovereign will and pleasure, and he made them known to whom he pleased, Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20 . And although some of the ways which he doth appoint may seem to have a great compliance in them unto the light of nature, yet in his worship he accepts them not on that account, but merely on that of his own institution; and this as he hath declared his will about in the second commandment, so he hath severely forbidden the addition of our own inventions unto what he hath appointed, sending us for instruction unto Him alone whom he hath endowed with sovereign authority to reveal his will and ordain his worship, John i. 18 ; Matt. xvii. 5 ; 1 Chron. xvi. 7 .

John Owen, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, 4 (Joseph Kreifels).

Worship

Several factors have led up to this post in the last couple of weeks. First, a conversation I had with a couple of friends who had attended Andy Stanley's church. While it appeared they had some reservations about the service they were quick to jump to his defense. "It all tied in." is what I heard on more than one occasion. The brief video I viewed in which they were getting ready to have a scavenger hunt in the sanctuary was very disturbing to me. Personally I would have walked out. This is not worship, no matter how relevant one thinks it is.

The big issue for me these days is this "relevance" we think we need to introduce into worship. The idea is we do something kind of worldly to lure the pagan into our church and then pull the ole' "Bait and switch" and hit em with the gospel. There are several problems here. One, we seem to be under the delusion that it is our job to get the pagans into the church. It is not. Our job is to proclaim the gospel, God the Holy Spirit saves. And guess what folks, every single person God ordains for salvation will hear this gospel. Two, the people pulling this "switch" never get around to preaching the gospel.

Second, several articles I have read recently. These articles mainly centered on the "new" methods of doing church contrasted with the "ordinary means of grace" ministries. The so-called new methods are those "Purpose driven," "contexualization," "word and deed," and "emerging/emergent" among others. The main problem of these new methods is their focus is in the wrong place. Even while worshiping at a Christian College, before I knew what reformed was let alone that I was one, I could tell the emphasis was on the wrong person. These new methods all focus on us and what we should/need to be doing instead of on God and what He has done. And no wonder these all come from an Arminian/self-salvation viewpoint. If one has to "decide for Christ," then salvation is up to the individual and not God. It is not surprising then that we hear the rallying cry of the new reformation "Deeds not creeds!" Unfortunately the ones screaming this mantra do not realize they are screaming "Give me Law, not Gospel!"

Finally, the Adult Catechism class Dr. Horton is teaching is on worship. One of the points he made that really struck me is that we have lost the title of the service we attend. We now call it a "worship service," which puts the focus on us and what we do. It used to be called "The Divine service," which put the focus where it should be on God and what He does. This service is not about us, it is not what we do, the service is what God does generously for us. I think we all could do well to reflect on this for awhile. Until next time.

Alan

Worshiping the god Self.

This video was created as a sermon helper by people who do not even realize how right they are. This is a subject that has been on my mind for awhile now. The worship songs being sung today are poor excuses for worship songs.

I have an even easier diagnostic test for songs than the one for sermons: are there more first-person personal pronouns than second or third? If so, you are not worshiping the sovereign creator.

Think about it. Telling the Lord what you are doing is a self-centered worship. Most of the contemporary worship songs are self-centered, and no wonder—most of today's musicians are not exactly theologians; in the past, most hymn writers were. Music has a huge influence in our society, and this is reflected in the contemporary Christian music scene as well. I believe this trend has had only a negative effect on the church, and I think we should stick to the old hymns for our worship.


I had to throw this one in as well. I don't think it needs much commentary.