The Scourge Of Racism
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As the Lord has led me to write many times, removing the artificial and stuffy inventions of manmade Christianity that serve as barriers to unsaved folk coming into the churches to hear about Him is a good thing. However, many in recent years have gone much further than this and are among other things, altering biblical Christianity’s core message, the Gospel (if not eliminating it altogether) along with the Lord’s commandments and instructions to make the faith more amenable to especially those born after 1980. Tinkering with or setting aside the biblical Gospel no matter how noble the motive is still to fall under the apostle Paul’s God approved anathema (Galatians 1:6-10)!
Departures from God’s Word to accommodate human worldly interests and tastes are legion. They come complete with light, video and sound worship extravaganzas and dress code fit for the Holy One? I mention a few of the heretical departures from God’s Word in this edited 2012 repost that along with tinkering with the Gospel is clear evidence of widespread succumbing to worldly peer pressure by many professed Christians and their church leaders to fill large meeting venues. In the end though, besides the temporary display of the ability to draw a crowd by the leaders, what will the ostensible crowd of Jesus followers have to stand firmly against the world when they are still of it?
Originally Posted April 22, 2012
The pressure to conform to someone else’s standard of whatever begins early in life when as newborns, in spite of our best efforts to have our way, those giant people called parents insist that we behave as it pleases them. Then, it is siblings and finally school age peers that start applying pressure for us to share their interests, likes, dislikes, etc. Not only did I experience the foregoing for myself, of course, but as a parent I had to endure what I now know is every parent’s nightmare, the dreaded: so and so’s “parents let them do it.” This is followed by the not so subtle, “they have one.” This may be funny because at whatever level, you can relate to peer or other pressure to conform.
However, the issue turns deadly serious when others are attempting to pressure us to do evil. Contrary to worldly standards of political correctness and tolerance, evil is whatever goes against the written Word of God--period! Knowing my own exasperation at times with the yielding of my children to worldly peer pressure, I cannot imagine God is very pleased with how easily His children cave in to it. Oh, we try hard to rationalize and justify our worldly compromises even using Scripture at times and saying, “I don’t see anything wrong with…” or “that was back then” as if God changed; seeking any tiny sliver of release to line up with the world’s standards and what we want to do.
A major example of compromise is the removal of the Gospel for salvation from sin as the central theme of witnessing and preaching. As their defense, many corruptly cite the apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. Yet, he did not mean that he changed the Gospel, adopted worldly practices or did evil to bring about the good of saving souls in his witnessing. He did mean that he began his work where the people he was dealing with were at in their spiritual, cultural or occupational lives so he could connect to them. He then proceeded to work the Gospel into his conversation and preaching to the end of some believing and being saved (Acts 13:4-12, 16:20-34, 18:1-11). The Gospel is God’s first priority for preaching (Acts 2:14-41; Romans 10:13-15)!
Another example is how--contrary to Scripture--many professed Christians do not believe all of Scripture’s ancient commands and instructions are still valid lest the world be offended (Isaiah 40:8; Mark 13:31). Among these are God’s order of mankind and the related roles of men and women in the home and churches (Ephesians 5:22-24; 1 Timothy 2:11-15).1 And very popular at this strategic moment is the false teaching and inspired movement that makes Christ a fulfiller of personal dreams and selfish ambitions contrary to His demand of self-denial to follow Him (Matthew 16:13-27). Selfish ambition is a flesh work whose practitioners will not inherit God’s Kingdom (Galatians 5:19-21).
The fact today is that many professed Christians and their churches are downright worldly as the norm! This is purposeful on the part of guilty leaders to fill seats and offering plates. It is also an effort especially of younger congregants to show their observing worldly peers they are still just like them. Nope, Christianity has not made these folk change one thing of this world that is precious to them. In so doing, they deceive themselves into believing they have made God more appealing and the Gospel less judgmental of people’s lifestyles. The truth is, they love not being left out of the world’s fun and having to stand out as weird in its eyes. That is classic submission to peer pressure.
God the Father would remind His wayward children that we are His peculiar people who are not to be ashamed of Christ or the Gospel (Mark 8:38; Romans 1:16; 1 Peter 2:9-10).2 He has called us out of the world no longer to conform to its standards, but in all self-sacrifice, His and supplies the Holy Spirit to us to make it happen (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Peter 1:13-16)! The ways of this world are of the sinful, selfish nature we enter it with; ways parents are hard pressed to restrain as we develop and peers work hard to get us to indulge.3 The ways of this world are also deadly as a holy God has already condemned them. He calls us out of the world to save us from that condemnation (1 John 2:15-17).
Therefore, the Lord commands the guilty young and old to repent from the demonically deceitful doctrine that you can have God and the world too! Come out from under the condemned false teachers that with syrupy sweet words make God’s whole reason for existence to be all about you (2 Peter 2:1-3). They prep you for the fire that waits for all who fail God’s final exam in not loving and walking in the truth of His Word (2 Thessalonians 2:9-15; Revelation 14:9-13). God is the Creator; you are the creature. God is the Savior; you are supposedly the grateful saved creature that is eager to please and serve Him in doing His will,4 not He to serve you in doing all your bidding! The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 As an unforeseen and unintended consequence I am sure, these guilty Christians find themselves on the side of the world in rebellion against God and His Word (they
may not see it that way, but God does--Psalms 2:1-3, 50:16-23; Matthew 12:30; John 14:15). They must also accept responsibility in this for such developments as
today’s gender identity confusion and the transgender movement. Sin, like seeds planted in the ground, always produces a crop of consequences because a holy
God will never be outsmarted by any of His creatures!
2 Read The Peculiar People, posted May 22, 2016 under the category, Instruction.
3 Fellow Christian Baby Boomers will recognize the frontal assault here on the worldly notion that sin is only learned behavior as captured in the lyrics of a song from one
of our favorite bands from back in the day and world, Earth, Wind & Fire. In That’s The Way Of The World, they sang, “Child is born with a heart of gold, way of the
world makes his heart grow (so) cold.” However, the Word of God is clear that we are born sinners learning only how to fine tune our methods as we get older (Psalms
51:5, 58:3)! For this reason, the wisest sinner that ever lived charged parents not to spare the rod (Proverbs 13:24, 22:15, 23:13-14). God also “now commands all
men everywhere to repent” and believe the Gospel to receive among other benefits, deliverance from His eternal rod of punishment for sin and a new nature wrought by
the Holy Spirit (Acts 17:24-31; Titus 3:1-8; 2 Peter 1:1-4, NKJV)!
4 This is the heart of every aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of Jesus Christ I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.
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