Posted on 12/09/2008 7:00:45 AM PST by Gamecock
As much as I appreciated what Rick Warren did in his faith presidential forum several months ago, his appearance last evening on one of my favorite programs, Hannity and Colmes, was disappointing. What Pastor Warren responded with to some of host's Allan Colmes simple yet important questions was not the biblical gospel of salvation or even a reasonable defense of the gospel.
One of his responses? "Try Jesus...?" As Colmes sarcastically quipped in response: "Like the book of the month club..."
Beloved, why can't evangelical leaders just speak the truth in love and give the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ without the sidebar fodder of feeling like they have to be funny; relate; be relevant; or make Jesus likable. Try Jesus? How disrespectful to the Lord. Heaven's dread Sovereign doesn't ask to be tried out like a new kind of food or gadget; He doesn't ask to be sampled - He demands to be worshiped, followed, obeyed and submitted to as Lord!
Now some might wonder: "Campi, is this kind of stuff really important today with our economy failing, people really hurting and feeling the pinch, wars still occurring, etc.?" Yes it is - and here is why. The gospel IS the key issue above all others. Not to diminish those other things for they are real concerns, but the eternal state of another's soul is the preeminent weight of all. Even if all around fails and we face some very difficult and trying times financially in our nation, the one true hope of all can never be depreciated or bankrupted - the hope of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? We are privileged, beloved, to go to a lost world with the hope of salvation and the forgiveness of sins in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is our hope as believers too. We need to encourage one another with this hope daily. We need to pray for each other like never before. We need to comfort one another with the words of Christ these days and to provoke one another with love and good works. So when a well-known pastor gets on a national news talk show and doesn't really present the true gospel when asked plainly - then it should matter.
Here is part of the transcript.
COLMES: All right. Let me ask you: you talk about, OK, so you think everybody needs a savior.
WARREN: I do.
COLMES: Well, what about those people who don't — you know, I happen to be Jewish. Not everybody — and Jesus, by the way, I have a lot in common with. Same religion.
WARREN: Absolutely.
COLMES: So not everybody necessarily goes that route.
WARREN: The thing is, Alan, I believe Jesus Christ came for everybody. I don't think he came for Christians. The Bible says take this good news to the whole world.
I don't care whether you're Baptist, Buddhist, Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, Muslim, or no religion at all. Jesus Christ still loves you. You still matter to God.
COLMES: True, and I think that's a wonderful message. But if you don't accept Jesus, if you're not something who goes that route religiously...
WARREN: Yes.
COLMES: ... can you find your way to heaven? Can you still be — go to the same place when it's all said and done?
WARREN: I'm not the authority on that, but I believe Jesus is. And everybody's betting their life on something. Jesus said, "I am the way." I'm betting that he's not a liar. I'm betting that he told the truth.
COLMES: What about — what does it say for all those people who do not accept Christ as their personal savior?
WARREN: I'm saying that this is the perfect time to open their life, to give it a chance. I'd say give him a 60-day trial.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: Like the Book of the Month Club.
WARREN: Give him a trial. See if he'll change your life. I dare you to try trusting Jesus for 60 days. Or your money guaranteed back.
COLMES: Really? You're going to give me the money back?
WARREN: Absolutely. Direct to me, Sean Hannity, FOX News Channel.
COLMES: But seriously, because I wonder. I mean, do you look differently upon those people like me who are not Christians but still don't believe...?
WARREN: I do not look differently on them. I think God...
HANNITY: He likes you more than I like you. He loves you. He tells you every time he's here.
COLMES: He's a good American.
HANNITY: Exactly.
WARREN: We're all created in the image of God. There's no doubt about that. There's not a person on earth that God doesn't love, but God wants us to learn to love him back.
And to me, God says, "I've given you this gift of grace, which means you don't earn your way to heaven. You don't work your way to heaven. You simply receive my gift."
And — and that means we need to unwrap the gift that God has given us, and your past can be forgiven. You can have a purpose for living, and you can have a home in heaven.
COLMES: Can you do all those things in other religions, too?
WARREN: I don't know how you would possibly do that. God didn't send 100 Jesuses; he didn't send 1,000. He sent one.
As a person that didn’t come to Christ until they were 35 (and was unchurched, unschooled, and unknowlegable about Christiantiy), the “try Jesus” approach does work if you are talking about opening yourself to learning about Jesus.
The analogy I use for my conversion is a sailboat being pushed by a slow breeze towards shore. At first the port is hard to see, but as the breeze pushes you towards shore the port becomes easier to see. As you approach, you become confortable with the idea of arriving at the port. When you arrive, stepping onto shore is just one last step in a long journey.
So many people want to just dump every religious concept on a person at one time, or expect people to suddenly jump headfirst into Christiantiy. That’s like being a sailboat at sea and having a gale-force wind come up and suddenly drive you into port in a manner of seconds. Some people might jump off the boat, but I can say for myself, I would not have. I’m stubborn enough that I wouldn’t allow any storm to force me to do anything. I would have stayed in the boat, ridden out the storm, and then gone somewhere else.
God reaches people in different ways.
There is only one way to present the gospel. The individual known as "The Good Samaritan" demonstrated the first step when he encountered the obvious opportunity thrown into his path.
Good thing FR wasn’t around when Paul was preaching to the Greeks...not sure he went into enough detail. He sugar coated the Gospel, failing to damn them all to hell and failed to tell them to repent before God destroyed them all!
And he didn’t even have Alan there to challenge every word out of his mouth before he could finish a sentence!
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council.”
I recently thought of this approach myself, when I was thinking of the scoffers that I run into:
"OK, you don't believe in Jesus. How about asking Jesus to show you that He exists? Don't tell me what you're going to ask, tell Him. But don't cheat. When you get your answer, don't ignore it."
“There is only one way to present the gospel. The individual known as “The Good Samaritan” demonstrated the first step when he encountered the obvious opportunity thrown into his path.”
The Samaritan was not presenting the gospel. He wasn’t even Jewish. Samaritans were an offshoot of Judaism, and were looked at by Jews of the day the way Christians might look at a Christian cult today.
Paul presented the gospel in many ways. You say there is one way. Either you or Paul are wrong.
Samaritans and Jews were enemies in the day. I think the lesson from the good Samaritan is that we should approach each other in love, regardless of our differences.
Make sure you get a receipt, and hang on to it. Rick Warren says there are exchanges or refunds after 60 days.
You missed my point. I’ll let you figure it out.
I suspect you’re right.
We discovered that Saddleback has exceeded it’s vision regarding numerical growth but appears to be faltering on those aspects of its vision that pertain to in-depth Biblical study and teaching......We decided to call Saddleback to find out how their midweek ‘believers’ service was doing. Sadly, we have to report that Saddleback does not currently offer a mid-week believer’s service. The only church services currently being offered at Saddleback are the weekend ‘Seeker Friendly’ services...
...Secondly we conducted a phone survey to find out if Saddleback’s lay ministers have achieved the reputation of being the ‘best Bible teachers in the country’. So far not one of the churches that we’ve contacted has spontaneously said that ‘Saddleback’s lay ministers are the Best Bible teachers.” One pastor even laughed when we suggested Saddleback’s lay ministers could be the correct answer. When he stopped laughing he asked if we were joking...
...This also does not surprise us. Recently, Chris Rosebrough of ExtremeTheology.com conducted an informal survey with a sampling of Saddleback’s small group leaders and found that of the leaders that he surveyed nearly 2/3rds of them were not able to pass a simple quiz on basic Christian doctrine and key Biblical knowledge.
...Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., with bestselling author Rick Warren took a plunge down from number five to number thirty-nine. New membership gains in the past year dropped by nearly 1,500 people to 1,149.One of my posts, from 2005:The PDL movement will end up producing "burnt over districts" of ex-believers who thought there was more to Christianity, and were led astray by Warren and his PDL. If there was "deeper" meaning and material for new converts, I'd think Warren would use the profits from PDL to publish it, or at least promote it. From what I've seen in his books and on Saddleback's website, I don't Warren has any idea how to transition a milk drinker into a meat eater.Another one of my posts, from 2005:
...does Rick Warren have a "sweeping P.E.A.C.E. plan to defeat poverty" from among the 20,000-40,000 members of Saddleback Church attendees? I see individual ministries named on the Saddleback website. But I don't see the sweeping statements and promises regarding defeating poverty from Saddleback that I'm seeing regarding his Rwanda efforts. Not saying he can't do both. Just saying I don't see him doing this domestically, and among his own flock first.
The answer to your question is simple; Warren along with numerous other "evangelical" leaders are ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and more afraid of offending men than they are offending God. Warren does not want to "offend" the sensabilities of supposed "seekers". Hence they procalim a "different Gospel" which is not another gospel at all:
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel;
which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!
As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:6-10
I have for a long time had problems with Rick Warren’s theology...this is just further evidence of his misguided campaigns.
I had the same thought as this writer when I saw this. But the church has for a long time taken the trends and jingle songs of the world and tried to use them to grow the church (sadly). I remember back in the 70’s or 80’s there was one advertisement (sorry I dont remember what it was for) but the slogan catch phrase was “try it you’ll like it.” Sure enough you would see pastors employing a “try Jesus you’ll like Him.” One comes to Jesus in true repentance not as some type of try it you’ll like it experiment. IMHO!
Well, some of it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
Such as this:
“God didn’t send 100 Jesuses; he didn’t send 1,000. He sent one.”
By the way - good to see you back again. I was beginning to worry about you.
Whatever. You do know he was killed right?
Gal 1:6
Warren needs to learn how to evangelize to the sinner.
As a long-time Christian, I know that, ok? On the other hand, many pastors reach out in many ways to those who don’t know Christ, in whatever way they think will reach them. What did Paul say?? “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak; to them that are without the law, as without law, that I might gain them that are without law ... and I do this for the gospel’s sake.”
Just that.
Now if you are convicted of your sin by the Holy Spirit and it is the right time and your heart is not hardened then true conviction and repentance and salvation will follow.
And yet Warren's advice here is the same suggestion I give to non-Calvinists all the time -- try living as if you believed the Holy Spirit were directing your every step and that God was truly in full control of your life and the world and that all things are ordained by God to bring you closer to Him.
This was my husband's suggestion to me when I was skeptical of the Calvinism he had come to embrace with so much joy. I ignored his offer for quite awhile. Eventually the weight of the evidence prevailed, and I came around.
Now I tell my children the same thing. Even if you find it difficult some days to believe Christ loves you and will never leave you, act as if it were true...because it is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.