The year was 1984 and I had just become a born again Christian.  I remember the popular saying at the time- “Christians can have fun too!”  But even though I had just turned 24 it wasn’t a “Let’s have fun with Jesus” gospel that saved me.  It wasn’t a certain style of Christian music that moved me; it wasn’t a new cultural church vibe that drew me- All it took was the Holy Spirit showing me I needed Jesus.

The path to Jesus is not found in this world, and it doesn’t need this world’s culture to validate it.  The church in it’s preoccupation with being “relevant” has bought into a lie- People do not come to Jesus because we have dressed Him up to look appealing, or to be cool, fun or current.  There has only ever been one way to enter into LIFE, and it has nothing to do with being like the world.

Only the Spirit of God is able to open blind eyes and move hard hearts; only the Holy Spirit can draw people to Christ- everything else is smoke and mirrors.  Salvation is the Father’s work, not ours: This is true for every generation; it’s true for every age group; it holds true for every people group and culture. 

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…”  (John 6.44)

I can almost hear the deafening reaction, “Yes, but, we need to be relevant; the church is no longer relevant!”

To that I say: The reason we are not relevant is because we are not focused on the eternal. 

God’s Word is always relevant because it never passes away like the world’s fads do.

When we seek to be like the world we cease to be truly relevant.  The church exists to reveal heaven, to point to Jesus and eternity, and when we fail to do that we make ourselves utterly irrelevant.

The heavenly call

The call of His Spirit is not an earthly call, but a heavenly one.  In Revelation, chapters 2-3, does God tell the churches to do their best to be like the surrounding culture?  Does he tell Christians to makes themselves attractive and appealing to the world by being just like the culture they live in?  No, He calls them to repent and return; He calls them back to Himself and refocuses their eyes on eternity.

So many in the church are worried how they will reach future generations- I’m worried for future generations if this generation fails to stand for God’s truth.  Paul, the Apostle, laid down his life to defend the faith so that all who came after him would be able to have the purity and truth of the gospel.

Many today appear more interested in having a dialogue or conversation about what the truth is, than being messengers of the Lord.  A messenger represents the one who sent him- We are to carry heaven’s torch to light a dark world.  This will bring us into sharp contrast with the culture around us.  What does light have to do with darkness?  The absolutes of God’s Word will bring the church into sharp contrast with the relativism of the world.  This is how it should be!  When we try to blunt that effect we’re hurting, not helping the gospel.

The death of doctrine

Have you seen the proliferation of Christian blogs that call for change in the church that come with an obvious dislike of doctrine and dogma?  “We shouldn’t be so dogmatic, so absolute!”  But the Word of God tells me that the church is supposed to be “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15)  If we won’t stand for absolutes, for truth, who will?  Jesus put the truth plainly:

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  (John 3:19-21)

The reason people refuse Jesus is not because He’s irrelevant or antiquated- scripture says they reject Him because they love darkness and refuse to walk into the light.  What favor do we do the world by blunting this truth?  To a world drowning in relativism we need to hold out the absolutes of God’s Word.  Who will stand and say, “Thus saith the Lord”?

A distaste for “preaching”

Why is it that those calling for change in the church often seem apologetic about the church?  Preaching has always been a staple of the church but it doesn’t fit well with our culture.  We’ve grabbed a hold of the world’s buzzwords and want everyone to “join the conversation”- preaching gets in the way of that we’re told, so preaching is now ”bad” and conversations and discussions are “good” according to the culturally responsive Christian.  Some are downright apologetic that a person would have to actually endure preaching!

Should we apologize for “preaching”?  And who forgot to tell George Whitefield?

The church would be blessed to have 10,000 George Whitefield’s to herald the gospel.  The guy preached to 20,000 people in open air meetings without a microphone!  (The year was 1742!)  Any account of Whitefield I’ve ever read describes the man as quite direct and dramatic.  Have you ever read the sermons he preached?  He preached absolutes and made declarations, and oh, how God used him!

The point of preaching is not only instructive, but declarative.  I think many Christians are afraid of that today.  We’re afraid to say, “Thus saith the Lord”.  Whitefield wasn’t having a dialogue or discussion!  Nor was Stephen in the book of Acts, when he preached with such fire and truth that they stoned him to death!  His message made his listeners so furious that the bible says they “gnashed their teeth at him”.  He suddenly became very unpopular for telling the truth, but the bible has this to say about Stephen…

“But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”  (Acts 7:55)

We should not expect to see the glory of God if we refuse to stand up for the truth of God.

There’s a place for conversation and a place for proclamation.  Where are the Elijah’s of God? Where are the men of Acts like Stephen, or Paul, or Peter?  Where are the messengers of God who when they speak, speak as one who speaks the very oracles of God?  (1 Peter 4:11)

You see, it’s not an “emergent church” that we need… comfortable with the surrounding culture, and the culture quite comfortable with it.  We need to be crying out in this wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord!”  (Isaiah 40:3-5)

A voice of one calling:
       “In the desert prepare
       the way for the LORD;
       make straight in the wilderness
       a highway for our God.

 Every valley shall be raised up,
       every mountain and hill made low;
       the rough ground shall become level,
       the rugged places a plain.

 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
       and all mankind together will see it.
       For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Yes, these words mark the first appearing of our Lord; but the message holds true- Jesus is coming back!  And not to have a cup of coffee!  The time is short- How dare we embrace this world instead of warning it!  It’s time to repent and return:

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.  The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.  The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.  (2 Peter 3:8-10)

Does this sound like a good time to be cozy with the culture around us?  

“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding…”  (Jeremiah 3:22)

We don’t like to be told, “Stop sinning!”  We like Jesus and all His benefits- that all sounds good… but stop sinning?  No, that’s not as appealing!

The story I read today in the gospel of John is really quite amazing…  Jesus encounters a man who’s been an invalid for 38 years.  He heals the man instantly: The guy picks up his mat and walks away with a fresh start.  It was the Sabbath, and some Jewish men see him carrying his mat on the Sabbath and call him on it, “Hey! The law forbids you to carry your mat today!”

Now many people I’ve heard teach on this passage focus on the hard hearted response this guy got.  After all, he’d just been healed of a 38 year condition!  But as I was reading the passage today I found myself a lot more interested in the healed man’s response to Jesus…

After being confronted for carrying his mat his accusers wanted to know who had the gall to tell him it was okay to pick up his mat and walk around with it on the Sabbath.  Well, the guy had no idea who Jesus was; all he knew was that he’d just been healed.  One thing I’m sure he DID know, is that the guys that were looking for Jesus weren’t out to give him a pat on the back!

Some time later Jesus found the healed man at the temple, and here’s where it gets interesting… 

Jesus tells the man, “See, you are well again.  Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”  I take it the man didn’t appreciate Jesus’ advice because he went away and told the accusing Jews who were looking for Him exactly who He was!

Thanks for the healing, but I don’t need the lecture!

I get the feeling the guy didn’t mind being healed, but he didn’t appreciate being told not to sin.  Jesus has this guy pegged, and quite honestly, the guy doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson.  As I read it, Jesus said, “See, you are well again.”  In other words he wasn’t always an invalid, there was a time when he was well, and to me it sure looks like it may very well have been something he did wrong that caused him to be in the condition he was in for 38 years.  Jesus tells him, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you!”  In other words, “It might be even worse the next time around… you better stop what you’re doing!”

I also get the impression that whatever it is this guy did that caused him to wind up as an invalid for 38 years, he went right back to it after he got healed!  The guy just gets healed and Jesus is already having to tell him, “Stop it!  Stop sinning… Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?”  38 years later and the guy’s back to his old tricks; as soon as he has a chance to sin again he takes it!

He may have been an invalid for 38 years, he may have ended up that way because of his own sin, but being shown mercy and receiving healing didn’t seem to change his hardened heart- His reaction to Jesus’ rebuke was to go out and cause trouble for Jesus!  What an attitude!  “Who is this guy to tell me to stop sinning!”

That’s the way I read it.  We don’t really know what happened later.  Hopefully the guy thought about it some more and humbled himself by turning from his sin.  If not, it wouldn’t surprise me if he found himself in an even worse situation, just as Jesus had said might happen.

Let’s not kid ourselves, Jesus has our number- We’re transparent to Him, He knows everything that’s going on.  The Christian life is not just “be made whole”, it’s “go and sin no more”.  If we think otherwise we’re only fooling ourselves.

 Read the story in John 5:1-15

Scripture has much to say about God and His desire for a relationship with His people.  We have a God who is steadfast in love, and a people who are prone to wander.  You would think that it would be hard to grow cold in affection when you’ve been shown the greatest love the world has ever known, and yet, though we are the very bride of Christ and loved beyond measure… we still find a way to mess things up and stray!

In my song “Whatever Happened To Jesus?” I talk about that.

In Revelation 2:4 we read, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”  My song addresses various issues, but at the bottom of it all, I suppose forsaking our first love of Him would be at the heart of the matter; it is our forsaking of our first love that leads to all the rest of our troubles.  It’s then we began to flirt with the world and look for cheap substitutes to fill the empty spaces He used to occupy.  His Word, which at one time was the joy of our hearts, becomes faint in our wandering; we no longer fear displeasing Him or worry about the consequences of our unfaithfulness.  The abundant life and living waters that used to flow so freely become but a trickle, and our life begins to look more like a desert than a well watered garden.  It’s then that we break out the “Golden Calf” and try to whip up a little life of our own.  It may even seem to work for awhile as we enjoy the party.  Hey, a lot of our friends have come too and we’re having fun!  The world and it’s lusts, it’s pleasures and sins, do seem fun for a season.  We revel in it, wallowing in the mud, blinded to the fact that God is not amused.  You are His Bride!  His heart is grieved, His jealous anger aroused.  He’s desired a pure bride and you’ve flaunted your adultery to His face.  Most suitors would have long since cast you off, but God is not like man… In His love, He is determined to have YOU!  His desire is for you only.  He will not settle for you and your lovers; He wants your whole heart.  You are the apple of His eye, and He will not rest until you only have eyes for Him.

“I will betroth you to me forever…”

Hosea 2:19 reveals God’s heart of love for us in the words, “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion, I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD.”

The book of Hosea is filled with “the vilest adultery” and rebellion against the LORD, but more than rebellion- love scorned.  And God’s heart broken.  First comes His righteous anger: “Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breast, otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born…” (Hosea 2:2-3)  In vivid description He lays out the case of Israel’s infidelity to Him and we feel His broken heart together with His anger:

“…she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the Lord. (Hosea 2:13)

And yet, the very next words out of His mouth are, “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her…” Who can fathom the love of God?

The scriptures are filled with examples of straying from the Lord, and these examples are given to warn us and turn us back to Him. “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come…” (1 Corinthians 10:11)

“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.” (Hosea 14:4)

Let us return to the LORD… His love is from everlasting!

Download “Whatever Happened To Jesus?” from iTunes.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition…”  (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Scripture tells us that before the return of Jesus we will see a great apostasy, a great falling away.  But a falling away from what?  Some point to the large number of people leaving churches as evidence of this great falling away- “they are walking away from the faith”.  But it’s not people leaving the church that marks apostasy, it’s the church leaving Jesus!

I wrote the song “Whatever happened To Jesus?” early in my Christian walk.  I was in love with Jesus as a new believer and was grieved by what I saw happening in the church.  It almost seemed like the church was desperate to be accepted by the culture, and wanted to prove to the world that we could be just as good at anything they did, and have just as much fun.  The catch phrase at the time was, “Christians can have fun too!”  Instead of rejecting the world system, the goal seemed to be to embrace it.  That whole mentality bothered me a lot!  Hadn’t I just gotten free from the world’s pull?  Didn’t Jesus just call me out of all this mess?  Why in the world would I want to go back to what I left?  “Can this be what God has in mind for His Church?”

 Whatever happened to Jesus?

It’s been 23 years since I wrote “Whatever Happened To Jesus?”.  It’s message has been on my heart since I became a Christian and I’m releasing it now because I think it’s “for such a time as this.”  Over the last 23 years things have only gotten worse.  We have embraced the world to such a degree that in many churches one would be hard pressed to see any real difference between the surrounding culture and the church.  The word of God often takes second place to the words of men, and is often twisted to embrace that which it directly forbids!  One obvious sign of apostasy is the rejection of God’s Word:

“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”  (2 Timothy 2:2-4)

Embracing a world system which God rejects (1 John 2:15-17), and turning aside from God’s truth can only lead to a falling away from Jesus.  While His name may be invoked and retained, in actuality He has been left behind while we go to follow our own desires and ideas.  In essence we are no longer following Him however much we may say we are.

The spirit of anti-Christ works by seduction

Before the anti-Christ comes there will first be a spirit of anti-Christ that permeates the world. (1 John 4:3, 2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Christians speculate on who the anti-Christ will be and if he’s presently in the world, but the scripture tells us that before the anti-Christ makes his appearance there will be a widespread anti-Christ influence that is seen.  We tend to of think “anti-Christ” as something that’s “against Christ”, but the Greek brings out further meaning:

Greek: anticristoV, meaning “instead of Christ,” or “against Christ”

The spirit of anti-Christ is evident when “instead of Christ” we get something else in His place! And that is exactly what has happened today in many churches.  When Jesus becomes a mere figurehead in the church while we go about without Him doing our own thing, the spirit of anti-Christ has come in… the focus is taken away from Christ and replaced by something else other than Him.  The spirit of anti-Christ doesn’t come into the church with a megaphone shouting, “Hey! I’m against Christ!”; rather, it comes as a “seduction”- an enticement to something thought desirable.  This, of course, is the devil’s modus operandi:

“But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”  (2 Corinthians 11:3-4)

A pure devotion to Jesus

Paul, the apostle, wrote that he was concerned that perhaps we would drift away from a “sincere and pure devotion to Christ”, and embrace “another Jesus”.

I’m not sure I know what the terms “Christian” and “Church”  mean anymore in our present day.  Can you believe anything and practice anything, put the name “Christian” on it, and that alone makes it Christian?  Does putting a sign on the door and calling it a “church” make it one?  Is the church called to embrace the surrounding culture and resemble it?  It would seem so.  The spirit of anti-Christ has come in boldly using His name.  It may not look like anything that we see in God’s word, it may even embrace the world (and in some cases outright sin) in direct contradiction to God’s word, but as long as we call it “Christian” and use the name “Jesus” as Paul said, we “put up with it easily enough.”

We are in the midst of an anti-Christ onslaught where Jesus and His truth are being replaced with cheap substitutes, while His name is proudly attached to the very things He hates! 

It’s not people leaving the church that marks apostasy, it’s the church leaving Jesus!

Revelation 2:4 “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”

In my first post, “Whatever Happened To Jesus?” I address the relationship issue that I believe is key to our current condition.  We are the Bride of Christ and God desires us to be wholly His.  When we forsake our “first love” of Him it leads to an inevitable downhill slide and it’s not long before we’re committing adultery with the world.  We cannot be unfaithful in this way without hardening ourselves, otherwise our straying heart would constantly condemn us.  In Hosea the LORD says, “Let her remove the adulterous look from her face…”  (Hosea 2:2)  Please read my first post where I talk about God’s steadfast love for His people even though they are unfaithful to Him, but for now let’s understand that’s He’s not content to be one of a number of lovers- He desires that we be wholly His.

Loved, but told the truth…

God’s love for His people is beyond words!  And yet, God does not hesitate to tell it like it is:

“Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God.  A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the LORD…” (Hosea 5:4) 

His love is not mere sentimentality; He will not refrain from telling the truth- God expects a change in His beloved.  Things cannot go on as they have with the expectation that everything will be okay! 

“Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt.  And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”  (Hosea 5:15)

Repentance is not just an Old Testament concept, it runs all through the New Testament as well:

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord…” (Acts 3:19)

“When God raised up His servant, he sent Him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”  (Acts 3:26)

A final plea to return to Jesus!

We are witnessing a great “falling away”.  Now is not the time to mess around and play games! As we witness apostasy growing it is a clear sign that the end is getting near.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition…”  (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Is this really the time to be wandering away from Jesus?

The scriptures are filled with examples of straying from the Lord and are given to warn us and turn us back to Him.  “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come…”  (1 Corinthians 10:11)  It’s time to return to Jesus before it’s too late.  As we witness the spirit of anti-Christ permeating the world and the church we should understand that this is exactly what scripture said would happen before the Lord returns for His own; the time to return to the Lord is now!

“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.”  (Hosea 14:4)

“As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says,
   ”In the time of my favor I heard you,
      and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”  (2 Corinthians 6:1-2)

A sister in the Lord named “Trudy” created and posted some videos with my music to YouTube.  She chose the song, “Those You Love“, and I was blessed by how wonderfully she captured God’s heart of love.  The song is about how God’s discipline is meant to bring us back to Him and ultimately make us more like Him.  I’m the kind of person who seems to learn things the hard way, so I knew what I was talking about when I wrote the song!  I write and sing a lot about following Jesus but that doesn’t mean I’m an expert at it by any means.  One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that God doesn’t just give up on us.  I’m grateful that His Spirit strives with me when I wander, because I know His goal is to bring me into the love of God that’s in Jesus. 

“And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son.”  (Hebrews 12:5)

The tone of my song is thankfulness to God because I realize that even in my stupid rebellion and times of sin He just doesn’t give up on me. … I’m His son!  “Thank you Jesus that you’ve brought me back again and again, and your love is true!”

If the church is lukewarm, we need go no further than ourselves to ask why.  What’s the point in talking about the church at large if we’ve failed to address our own lukewarmness?  Revival of the church begins with the individual: 

“Will you not revive us again: that your people may rejoice in you?”  -Psalm 85:6

What is true revival in the biblical sense?  Is it not God pouring forth His Spirit because we have declined and wandered from Him?  Throughout the history of the church God has called  His people back to Himself through times and seasons of revival.  These periods are usually marked by a great number within the church being impacted by the outpouring of God’s Spirit.  But is it a faceless mass on which God moves by His Spirit?  Hardly!  Revival comes as one by one, we are awakened and respond.

There’s no revival without repentance

No true revival ever comes without repentance.  Read through Revelation 2-3 and notice how many times the church is called to repent!  Spend time in Acts and the same message is clear: repentance is key to spiritual life.

One of my favorite scriptures is, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord…”  Acts 3:19

The scriptural order is: first comes repentance and turning back to the Lord, then comes refreshing!

Living in Laodicea; or seated in heavenly places? 

Are you inclined to think that since we are living in an apostate time in church history there’s nothing more that can be done?  Have you resigned yourself to the status quo?  We may be living in the days of Laodicea, but there’s no excuse for Laodicea to be living in us.  Early in my Christian walk I traveled as an itinerant singer/evangelist.  Money was often scarce and living conditions weren’t always great by worldly standards.  But God always provided and I had a roof over my head.  On one occasion I was offered living quarters by a brother in the Lord who owned a very run down piece of property.  I rented a small room along with 3 other Christian brothers.  Frankly, the house was a dump!  Unfortunately, a couple of the guys I lived with decided to treat it as a dump and live like it was a dump.  On one occasion the owner of the house came home to find it in an ill treated condition.  I will never forget what He said… “Just because the house is a pigsty, doesn’t mean you have to live like pigs!”  Absolutely!  Conditions do not make us what we are, we can chose to live above them.  The Christian life is a call to “come higher”. 

Is the church in the land of Laodicea?  Understand then that “here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”  (Hebrews 13:14)  Put on your heavenly garments and live like a child of God though everything around you is decay!  You are called to come higher, to press toward the goal, that you may win the prize, for which God has called you heavenward in Christ Jesus!

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord…”  (Acts 3:19)

“Why did a Holy God
even give us another thought?
He could have held His breath
and the world have died-
Adam by Eve’s own side.
and that would have been the end.”

I heard a preacher recently thunder the wrath of God.  Actually he was very soft spoken, but His words carried the message of God’s judgment.  I’m not totally against that either.  You’ll find that I talk about these things in many of my posts.  There are biblical truths that have been largely discarded, and the message of God’s holiness, wrath, and judgment is almost completely absent in today’s church.  These are truths that need to be taught again.  Scripture teaches, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”  (Hebrews 10:31)  The NASB version puts it this way:

“It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

I wonder how often you hear that preached today?  It is the truth, and it’s something we need to remember and take very seriously.  Our God is holy and we better be careful to never forget that.  I won’t mention names, but there are some who have appeared and taken up that message, and taken it up very strongly.  You can find their videos on YouTube, their messages on various blogs, and maybe you’ve even gotten an email or two from a friend who’s been shaken by the gravity of what they’ve heard, and it’s caused them to sit up and evaluate their relationship with God.  I think that’s a good thing.  If the bible is telling us that it’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God while we go about acting like it’s no big deal to encounter Him, we’ve got a problem!

But I would like to mention another problem:  If we get so focused on the message of God’s judgment and wrath that we forget His mercy, we have an even bigger problem!

“He could have held His breath
and the world have died-
Adam by Eve’s own side.
and that would have been the end.”

God could have ended everything with Adam and Eve.  He could have withheld His breath and their sin would have been the last human sin He ever had to deal with, but He didn’t do that.  What does that tell us about God?  It tells me that His heart of mercy is greater than His desire to send judgment.  It tells me that His love is higher on the ladder than His wrath:  God will find a way to send mercy, and remove judgment, even if it means Him paying the highest price.  He proved that to us by sending His Son as a sacrifice who would bear the penalty for our sins, taking upon Himself the wrath we deserved. 

A return to holiness preaching

Yesterday while listening to a revival preacher in a church we were visiting I heard 1 1/2 hours about God’s judgment, wrath, and displeasure with sin, but God’s answer to our sin problem was never really presented!  I was left with the feeling that God could, and would, smote me for my disobedience and that I “better get right with God”.  The way that I was “to get right with God” was by repenting of my sin.  (More on that later…)  Furthermore, I was told (along with everyone else in the room) that when I stood before Him, if I hadn’t gotten rid of all my “blots and blemishes” I wouldn’t have a prayer in the world of getting into heaven and would be cast straight into hell!  Over and over we were told of our need to be righteous and to live right.  We were reminded that God hates our secret sin.  We were reprimanded for not truly being His disciples if we failed to live correctly, and warned that we would ultimately be found to be fakes and cast out by Jesus with a word:

“Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

You could hear a pin drop!  And rightly so.  Where do you hear anything like this preached today with any kind of seriousness?  There are tons of places in the bible that warn of self deception, sin and God’s wrath, so why don’t we ever hear any of these things being preached? Many in the church are waking up to the fact that just calling oneself a Christian doesn’t cut it.  Just praying a prayer to “get saved” doesn’t cut it…  So we’re beginning to hear the other side:  God is a holy God and wants us as His children to be holy.  Preaching holiness is scriptural and we need it… but…

Working my way to heaven?

Somewhere during this preacher’s message I began to get concerned however.  Where was Jesus in all this?  The gospel was never really mentioned!  It was all about me “getting right” and I couldn’t help but think, “Man! Without Jesus, I have no righteousness.”  It was all about me repenting, all about me being a disciple, all about me getting rid of my own “blots and blemishes”, all about me “getting my robe clean”.  Hold on!  I thought Jesus was my righteousness.  I thought Jesus clothed me with His robe of righteousness.

“It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”  (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)

The most serious error of all!

As much as I truly believe there needs to be a return to holiness preaching and “walking as Jesus walked”, we need to be careful that we don’t fall into the most serious error of all:  Forgetting Jesus!  After everything’s said and done, the only way we can stand before a Holy God is to be hidden in Christ.  He alone is our righteousness.  The most serious error of all is to forget that fact.  Like my wife said later as we sat in the parking lot discussing this… “I could scrub and scrub my robe all day long but it still wouldn’t be clean enough.  I would still have so many stains…”  Exactly!  You can’t scrub your robe clean enough to stand before a Holy God.  If you think you can, you still don’t understand just how Holy He is, (or how sinful you are!).

Hearing this “preacher of righteousness” reminded me of a few things:

1. God’s mercy triumphs over judgment.  The fact that the human race continued after Adam and Eve proves that fact!  He could have ended the whole thing right there.  Don’t get so focused on His wrath that you forget His mercy!
2. Even so, we need to preach about God’s wrath and judgment because those things are very real too.  God sent a flood, and He tells us that the present world we live in will be destroyed by fire.  We should be telling people the whole counsel of God, and talking about God’s judgment is part of that.
3. Don’t exchange one error for an even bigger error:  God’s Word tells us over and over again that we are to live holy lives because our God is holy.  Omitting to teach and practice this truth is a serious error.  However, in our zeal to reclaim the truth of holiness we need to be careful that we don’t commit an even more serious error.  Jesus alone is our righteousness, and He alone is the reason we will be able to stand before a Holy God.  If we forget this truth we have made the most serious error of all! 

We are not saved by our works, we better very careful that we don’t give people the impression that we are!

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!  As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”

(Galatians 1:6-9)

There’s one thing worse than not preaching holiness… it’s failing to preach that ultimately Jesus alone is that holiness for us.  No matter how hard we try, no matter how holy we get, if we don’t realize that Jesus alone is the only way to stand before a holy God, we’ve made the most serious error of all!

While out shooting a cover photo for my song, “It Shouldn’t Be Like That“, we ran across this graffiti that really spoke to me.  My song is about being a prodigal, and this just seemed to capture the attitude that overtakes us when we go astray.

So what is it?  I can’t stop, or I won’t stop?  The bible tells me that because I’m born again, sin no longer has dominion over me.  In other words, I can stop, I just won’t.  That’s the real truth isn’t it?  And until I own up to that I’m going to remain a prodigal.  “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”  (Romans 6:14)

How do you become a Prodigal son or daughter?  It’s not that hard really; all you have to do is walk away from the Father’s love.  Sometimes we just walk away and everyone knows it; we go back to the pigpen of the world and it’s obvious to everyone.  Sometimes it happens like erosion; we don’t even know how we got where we are.  We’re still “talkin’ the talk”, going to church, smiling our Christian smile… but if we just stop to think about it, there’s nothing inside; it’s not real anymore.  You’ve become a prodigal. 

The scariest thing is that you can be a Prodigal and not even know it!  Jesus tells the church of Laodicea that they are “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked”… but they have no clue! They have “Prodigal” written all over their foreheads but don’t see it at all. You can look, sound, and act like a Christian… and be a million miles away from your Father’s house.

I wrote this song because I’ve been there, and it just seemed such a strange contradiction to be a “Child of the King” and be so empty inside. Our Father’s heart is that we’d come to our senses and return home. He’s so ready to receive us with open arms!

The Prodigal Son:  Luke 15:11-31

The song, “It Shouldn’t Be Like That”  is available at iTunes and amazon.com .  Also available on my site here, and at CD Baby here , and at other download sites.

I’ve been rereading my two favorite books on revival and can’t recommend them highly enough.  Reading books like these will remind you of what the Christian life is meant to be! They will challenge you, convict you, inspire you, and motivate you to press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called you heavenward in Christ Jesus! 

“Revival” by Martyn Lloyd-Jones is an excellent book on revival that is widely available.  Reading accounts of what God has done in the past is very revealing when compared to our present situation.  The reason so many accept the current low spiritual climate may be that they’ve never had their eyes opened to what is possible when God pours out His Spirit upon a dry individual or church.  This book is both convicting and inspiring, leading me to personally pray that God would start by reviving me!

Arthur Wallis’s book is not as widely known, but oh, is it a good one!  This book goes straight to the heart of our condition, the need of repentance, prayer and the outpouring of God’s Spirit in our lives.  It’s extremely practical and there’s no wasted filler; there are so many gems and truths here that it’s almost impossible not to be ministered to!  Mr. Wallis also gives many examples of how God has moved on His people during past revivals.  It’s convicting, but more so, inspiring.  Unfortunately this book is out of print and can be hard to obtain at a reasonable price, but copies can be found if you look hard enough.  It’s well worth it!