I was at the grocery store the other day when
I was unexpectedly confronted with an adult-oriented magazine located
right next to the vitamin section. I immediately had to look away from
the front cover, which featured a scantily-clad, seductively-posed, sex
symbol. Yet it was only a few weeks ago that I read an article about
how this same sex symbol loves to speak in tongues and has to restrain
herself from outbursts in tongues while attending church services. What?
This
is actually a perfect illustration of American charismatic
Christianity, where you can say you love Jesus (like the rapper “The
Game” claims to do) and still frequent strip clubs (as “The Game” still
does), or where you can flow in the gifts of the Spirit and
become a made-for-TV preaching sensation, only to announce that God
told you that you married the wrong woman, leading to a quick divorce
and remarriage.
Yes, this is the “gospel” of the 21st century,
“Spirit-filled” church of America, where the cross is bypassed, denial
of the flesh is scorned, purity is called legalism, and anything goes if
it feels good.
It is the “gospel” of
self, in which Jesus dies to make you into a bigger and better you, a
“gospel” in which God is here to serve you and help you fulfill your
dreams, and where the measure of all things is not how God feels about
it but how you feel about it (or how it makes you feel).
Back in the late 1950s (as I recounted in my 1990 book How Saved Are We?) there was a notorious gangster named Mickey Cohen. He attended a Billy Graham meeting
in Beverly Hills, and although he expressed some interest in the
message, as revival historian J. Edwin Orr explained, Cohen “made no
commitment until some time later when another friend urged him, using
Revelation 3:20 as a warrant, to invite Jesus Christ into his life. This
he professed to do, but his life subsequently revealed no evidence of
repentance, ‘that mighty change of mind, heart and life’ [as defined by
Richard Trench]. He rebuked [his] friend, telling him: ‘You did not tell
me that I would have to give up my work,’ meaning his rackets; ‘You did
not tell me that I would have to give up my friends,’ meaning his
gangster associates. He had heard that so-and-so was a Christian
football player, so-and-so a Christian cowboy, so-and-so a Christian
actress, so-and-so a Christian senator, and he really thought that he
could be a Christian gangster.”
Today, in some charismatic circles, you can be a Christian gangster--or, at least, a tongue-talking,
seductive starlet, or a Christian lingerie model, or a
strip-club-attending, Jesus-speaking rapper, just to mention a few.
After all, as we are reminded day and night, “Who are you to judge?”
Actually,
what Jesus taught was that we should not judge hypocritically or
superficially or unjustly and that we should not condemn. But Jesus also
said, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment”
(John 7:24). The Lord commands us to judge, as long as we do it rightly.
Paul
taught the very same thing, writing to the Corinthians, “not to
associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of
sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or
swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with
judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to
judge?” (1 Cor. 5:11-12)
Why is it that
everyone seems to know the words, “Judge not” (Matt. 7:1), but very few
seem to know—or care about—the divine call to judge those “inside the
church” (meaning those who profess to be followers of Jesus)?
Without
a doubt, only the Lord knows who is saved and who is not. But the Word
make things very simple for us, outlining God’s part and our part: “But
God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those
who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart
from iniquity.’” (2 Tim. 2:19) There you have it! To quote the words of
John, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed
abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of
God” (1 John 3:9). Could God make himself any more clear?
Unfortunately,
as Orr noted years ago, “Many have sadly forgotten that the only
evidence of the new birth is the new life,” and the Scriptures make
perfectly clear that if we profess to follow Jesus with our lips but do
not follow Him with our lives, we do not belong to Him. (I’m not talking
about momentary lapses in our walks with the Lord or about serious
mistakes that we make, only to reject and renounce them. God’s mercy and
forgiveness are great. I’m talking about the consistent, willful
pattern of our lives. Are we following Jesus or not?)
It’s
time to say to say goodbye to this watered-down, sin-excusing,
so-called gospel that offers everything and calls for nothing. It’s time
to get back to the cross and back to the truth. Otherwise, as America
collapses in a heap of amoral ruin, the soft preachers of America will
be largely to blame.
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