Seven Thousand By Grace

We live in comparable times. We do not live in a time that would be typified by the conquests of Joshua, or the rise of David, or the established glories of Solomon. We live in a time when idolatry and syncretism are largely accepted, even within the evangelical church. We live in a time when other gods are exalted in the public square in the name of diversity. We live in a time when wicked men appear to be able to do as they please, egged on by the Jezebels behind them. We live in a time when children (by the million) are being caused to pass through the fire. And we live in a time when, if we held a conference to protest these monstrosities, we could get at least seven thousand to come.

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PineHall  - Grace Alone   |2009-11-28 12:21:04 Good article. To summarize his conclusions and put my spin to it: By God's grace alone we are saved. American Evangelicals got into trouble by trying to "save" America. That is God's job. Our job is first to worship Him and then share the good news of Jesus in one's life by word and deed. We as Christians in community walk a fine line by being in the world but not of it. We don't escape to the bunkers to watch from a distance. And we don't compromise our beliefs to fit in. Our communities are distinct but not detached from the world.

emperorbma   |2009-11-28 15:39:22 I certainly agree that we do not work conversion and that it is God's work through grace. However, I have begun to wonder if some modern Christians haven't fallen to "evangelism cynicism." To explain what I mean, I tend to think history repeats itself. If we look at the history of the Hebrews, there is a lot of commonality to the history of the Christian faith. We both start as an oppressed minority under a vicious empire. Then, we come out of the oppression, formalize our creed and expand our evangelistic efforts. Then, we fall to the temptation of using the sword as an evangelism tool. Then, we reach the balance point of recognizing evangelism as God's work and focus on keeping our creed faithfully to foster bringing others to God. The last thing that happens, however, is that some develop a cynicism about evangelizing anyone at all. This final step is observed in its fullness with the modern Jewish religion, which does not evangelize and has a long, drawn out process of conversion for proselytes. I suspect that this was not always so and that before the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Hebrew religion did evangelize far more than now. Obviously, as Christians, Christ's direct command overruled that cynicism for a few millennia but I think it has begun to resurface... As Christians, we have not yet reached the point of "I was born into this religion" that our Lord was criticizing when He said "out of these stones God can raise children of Abraham." However, I think the "curse of the Pharisees" would seem to be taking root in some ways despite our best efforts to fight legalism and rejection of God's Word... As I said at the start, I do not believe our recognition of conversion of God's work is a bad thing but I do think that we must combat the cynicism that will creep inevitably into the ministry of the Gospel. We can even see it today in that many Christians have begun to dull the teachings about sin and have adopted the approach that all paths lead equally to Heaven. Likewise with Karma and reincarnationism. Of course, I am also speaking in general and I don't think that these trends are entirely exclusive either because the nature of reality that God has created seems to accommodate far more "superposition of states" than just having only one of the above...

PineHall  - Sharing   |2009-11-28 22:19:14 I agree 100%. God has for some reason gave us the job of sharing the Word. That is our responsibility. We can fall into the extreme of not sharing for God will do it as well as the other extreme of we need to make conversion happen. We need to share the Gospel in ways that are culturally or personally meaningful while remaining 100% true to the Word of God. If we stray one way or the other we can easily get cynical, saying 'we are the "chosen" and you are not since are not believing', or saying 'how can they not believe when I have presented the message so well'. And I think unfortunately MTD is very much alive in American and in our churches. That moralistic emphasis leads to an us versus them legalism that the Pharisees had.

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