Oops, sorry... I thought it said "Santa"...
Posted on 09/06/2010 3:34:08 PM PDT by Gamecock
Donald Grey Barnhouse illustrates how dangerous it is to preach moral ethics minus the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Here is what he said on CBS radio, over half a century ago:
All of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am," and churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ is not preached.
When preaching is full of moral instructions like, "read your Bible" "share your faith," "don't look at pornography," "teach your kids," and "be honest in your taxes," without setting Jesus forth as the only path through which this can be accomplished, you produce a bunch of moral legalists, nice people with nice smiles, who are either too good or too terrified to take an unbeliever to lunch, babysit a stripper's child, or share the gospel with a man in a drunken stupor.
Moral instructions are biblical and wonderful. Bryan Chapel observes that "Be messages"—be like, be good, be disciplined—"are not wrong in themselves; they are wrong by themselves." Without Christ it is external legalism. When we call people to moral duty, feeding their lust for religion that makes them feel like good people, without showing them how utterly impossible it is to consistently obey even one of these commands on their own, we encourage them to the idolatry of religion instead of worship of Jesus Christ.
Consider how the commands of Paul were rooted in the gospel. In Ephesians 4, he tells Christians to serve others because "grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift" (Eph 4:7). In Ephesians 5, he commands husband to love their wives "just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). He tells the Corinthians to tithe, and then motivates them with the gospel of Jesus Christ:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich (2 Cor 9:9).
It is so human of us to measure our righteousness by how well we obey instead of by Jesus Christ alone, letting all our obedience be in response to what He already did for us instead of motivated by sheer moral duty! John the Apostle did not say, "We love because we are supposed to love!" No. He wrote, "We love because He first loved us!"
(1 John 4:19). That gospel-motivated love! Now are we supposed to love? Yes! The two greatest commandments in all the sixty-six books of Scripture command us to love. But if this love is not preceded by, rooted in, and motivated by God's love for us through the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is not pleasing to God, will leave us proud, arrogant, and smug, and castrated when it comes to loving the others, both saved and unsaved.
Charles Spurgeon told the story of a man who loved his King. The king loved carrots, so the man grew the fattest carrot he could. On the day he presented the carrot, the king was overjoyed and gave him five more acres of land to see what kind of carrots he could grow with that.
An official in the court overheard this conversation and thought, "He got five acres for one carrot! Let me see what I can do!" The official brought in his finest horse and presented it to the king. "Thank you!" said the king. But the king offered him nothing in return. The frustrated official whined, "A man gives you a carrot and you give him five acres of land. I give you a thoroughbred steed and you give me nothing!"
The king replied, "When the farmer gave me a carrot, he gave it for me. When you gave me a horse, you gave it for yourself." It is very easy to be moral for ourself, and not for Jesus.
We are drawn to find our selfworth and pesonal identity in our tight family, regular Bible study, or consistent church attendance, replacing Jesus as Lord with religion as Lord, which at its heart, is another form of idolatry, no different than cussing, physical abuse, or bowing before a statue of Buddha.
Tim Keller features this beautifully in his book, Prodigal God. He paints God as the prodigal. "Prodigal" means not only to waste, but can mean to lavish. God is a prodigal. He pours out grace in huge amounts!
But then Keller shows that both the older and the younger brother are in desperate need of this grace. There are two ways of being lost. You have the moral relativist illustrated by the prodigal son; and you have the moral religionist, illustrated by the older brother, who Keller rightly observes is as lost as the one who left home. Who was closer to the kingdom of God? The Pharisee or the tax collector? The rabbi or the prostitute? Jesus answers this question in a different context: "Truly I say to you [the religious, the temple attenders] that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you" (Mat 21:43).
Often unbelievers, says Keller, are not rejecting Christianity but the older brother syndrome in us. We become the stumbling block to Jesus Christ, eclipsing His glory with our worship of religion instead of the Son of God. When unbelievers around you, what emanates from your words and actions? Religion or Jesus Christ?
So how should the preacher preach? He must preach Christ! Not to the neglect of Christian commands, but as their motivation to, end goal of, and pathway to these commands.
Bryan Chapell wrote,
Messages that are not Christ-centered inevitably become human-centered...These preachers do not deliberately exclude Christ's ministry from their own, but by consistently preaching messages on the order of "Five Steps to a Better Marriage," "How to Make God Answer Your Prayer," they present godliness entirely as a product of human endeavor...No message is more damaging to true faith. By making human efforts alone the measure and the cause of godliness, evangelicals fall victim to the twin assaults of theological legalism and liberalism—which despite their perceived opposition are actually identical in making one's relationship with God dependent on human goodness.
May we not fall under Christ's indictment of those not willing to come to Jesus, by not being willing to preach Jesus, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life" (John 5:39-40).
I’m confused.
If Satan ran the city, people’s hearts would not be full of lust, treachery, envy, sloth, greed, and all the fallen human desires that makes the world not filled of such decency? And what portions of the bible would people read, that they would not know of God’s love from the Living Word?
Oops, sorry... I thought it said "Santa"...
GARY, INDIANA! Maybe that pool hall was a bad idea, after all.
Once upon a time murder capital in America.
Don’t know what’s improved in 30 years?
A San Francisco where 2% of the population believed in the saving power of Christ would be holier than a Polyannaville where nobody did.
Moral behavior itself is vain without Christ. You could life a sin-free life by never getting out of bed, but I don’t imagine God would be impressed. That’s what the article is saying.
Ya got trouble...with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for POOL!
Can’t argue with anything he says. Interesting approach.
Barnhouse was such a good illustrator.
That was a great article. Good website as well.
This was wonderful reading and very inspirational. Thanks so much for posting it!
They would revert to reading Scripture as a moral guide, which happens in a lot of churches. How many people have you heard say that the Bible is a guide for living?
Living according to the Bible will cause many to clean up their acts, but as you know one sin is enough to condemn us.
Satan is not worried about Scripture, but of a proper understanding of Christ. As long as churches preach morals, Satan is happy, because he knows we can’t keep the law.
One more point: Satan is a master manipulator of Scripture. He can take Christ out of it sooo easily. We have to be careful to remember that Christ teaches that all of Scripture is about Him.
It’s a rhetorical answer to a rhetorical question, not what the author actually believes Satansburg would look like.
The point is, without Christ, what’s the point of leading a squeaky-clean, G-rated lifestyle? To prolong everybody’s march to the grave? People who don’t appreciate the true heart of the Gospel—Jesus’ saving power, the prospect of eternal life with God—and mistake all the “dos” and “don’ts” for its central message avoid sin not out of their faith in Jesus, not in an effort to make their lives a tribute to God’s goodness, but just so they can feel good about themselves. Works without faith are dead, too.
Detroit.
Thanks Julia.
It would look a lot like Islam
Matt Chandler preaches this message nonstop: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/sermons
He, among others, has a term for this non-Christ christianity - therapeutic moralistic deism. Most of our churches preach and teach it.
God help us.
I could say the same about the last church I attempted to stick with for about a year. When I asked why there wasn't a cross of Jesus within the church I was told it was merely a symbol and that the church did not worship symbols..............Pastor Bob creeped me out too........I left
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