What Has The Church Become?

What has the church become?

This has been on my mind now for a while, but as I'm sitting here thinking, it bothers me even more.  What has the church become?

I often wonder what missionaries think when they come back to America from overseas.  They have been reaching out to people that have never heard the name of Jesus before.  They do not even know that there is anything outside of what their culture has always believed and then all of a sudden the seed of the Gospel is planted.  These missionaries go to these people and preach the Gospel even to the point of losing their lives.  Not just their lives back home in America but sometimes even their physical life on this earth.  Why?  Because they believe that Christ is worth it.

I have been overseas doing mission work.  The most basic of places where worship is truly that...worship.  It is not about the music.  It is not about the building.  It is all about God.  I remember when I first went into one of the townships in South Africa and the missionary saying, "Look for the tent."  Why were we looking for a tent?  I thought we were going to a church...

We were...

As we stepped out of the car and into the dirt road where the church was "parked" that week my world in America was confronted with the real world.  These people could meet anywhere.  They could meet outside in the elements, in a tent, or if they were lucky even a small building.  They did not care about the structure, they cared about singing praises to God.  And when they sang...it wasn't about the music, it was about the joy one felt in the salvation that God had given to them.

I know that the established churches throughout the world still live in what is called the Constantinian Era.  We no longer sing Psalters, but now we prefer to have professional musicians sing to us.  Instead of opening the Word and truly seeking to hear from God, we simply rely on a thirty (or if we're lucky a twenty) minute sermon to fill us until the next gathering.  What has the church become?

Recently, I got to listen to a man that was a missionary to China.  We could not learn his real name, but got to hear of the work being done overseas in the name of Jesus.  But, before he even got up to spoke I was ashamed of what I saw.  This man, who had seen people arrested (maybe even his friends) in the name of Jesus was now sitting back in America and what did he get?  A show.  The lights were blazing, the band was rocking, the entertainment had arrived...but was God really there?  I sat in the back ashamed of what I was witnessing.  A man of God who had given his life to share the Gospel of Christ to those who had never heard it and here he was in the middle of our entertainment culture.  Instead of going therefore and making disciples of all nations, we were trying to entertain people into coming back week after week.  Instead of truly making disciples, we were making consumers.  People who wanted to be entertained, who wanted a good show.  Is that the church?  Is that really what the church has become?

At what point will the church become the Church again in America and around the "civilized" world?  When will we realize that worship comes from the heart, not a light-show and band, not even a great preacher, and especially not the videos we play to keep the attention?  When will we realize that people are dying and going to an eternity without Christ while we are comfortably entertained in our shallow Christianity?  What has happened to the church?

Preaching Christ Crucified,

Rev. Timothy R. Stokes


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P.S. I am reposting this from about a month ago.  I was censured last time, but not anymore.  The Truth is the Truth.

Spurgeon on Universal Atonement and Calvinism

I had a conversation with someone the other day that seems to think that Calvinism is on the decline and that I will not make it as a young Calvinist pastor within the Southern Baptist Convention.  They also believe that Spurgeon agrees with them on their views of universal atonement (or in their views that everybody is chosen for salvation; you just need to choose God back), even saying that if Spurgeon was a Calvinist than they must also be considered a Calvinist.  Spurgeon was definitely a 5-point Calvinist in his beliefs.  In this post I simply just want to let Spurgeon speak for himself by quoting what he says in his Defense of Calvinism.  Enjoy.

Spurgeon on universal atonement/redemption:

Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, "It is so beautiful.  It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men.  It commends itself,"  they say, "to the instincts of humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty."  I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood.  There is much that I might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show what the supposition necessarily involved.  If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died.  If the doctrine were true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who have been cast away because of their sins.  Once again, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His own testimony that there is a lake that burns with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood.  That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences that are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption.  To think that my Savior died for men who were or are in hell seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain.  To imagine for a moment that He was the substitute for all the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the substitute, afterward punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all my ideas of divine justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of all men, and that afterward some of those very men should be punished for the sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical heathen dieties.  God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and good!

Spurgeon on Calvinism:

The late lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, "Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9).  That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it.  If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord."  I cannot find in scripture any other doctrine than this.  It is the essence of the Bible.  Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation."  What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ; the bringing in of the works of the flesh to assist in our justification?  And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer?  Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here.  I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism.  It is a nickname to call it Calvinism.  Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.  I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith without works; or unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; or unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah.  Nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people that Christ wrought out upon the cross.  Nor can I comprehend a gospel that lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus.  Such a gospel I abhor.

Closing Thoughts:

I do not understand how people can simply try to shift the Word of God to fit their own desires.  The Bible is not a cultural book that changes with the times.  It is a revelation of the unchangeable God.  Thank God for his salvation.  Thank God that "Salvation is from the Lord."  Let us not boast in anything else other than the cross of Christ.

Preaching Christ Crucified,

Rev. Timothy R. Stokes

Encouragement in the Face of Death

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18


13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep,  that you may not grieve as others do  who have no hope. 14 For  since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him  those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,  that  we who are alive, who are left until  the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For  the Lord himself will descend  from heaven  with a cry of command, with the voice of  an archangel, and  with the sound of the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be  caught up together with them  in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so  we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Death...

The word commonly draws fear into the minds of people all around the world.  The Bible tells us that death is an enemy of God.  If this is the case we have ever reason to fear death, right?

Wrong...

The Thessalonian church struggled with the issue of death.  They believed that only those living when Christ returned would be able to take place in the that glorious return.  This belief resulted from their former pagan beliefs that there was no hope for the dead.  Yet, Paul reminds them that they are no longer bound by their pagan religion and fears.  Through Jesus Christ, that great enemy of God was defeated.  "Oh death, where is your sting?"  For followers of King Jesus, death no longer has a hold on us.  Therefore, if death no longer has a hold on us and Christ has won the victory, then we cannot mourn like the pagans do.  We cannot mourn as though this is the end, when in turn we realize that in Christ this is only the beginning.

Paul even says one more thing in response to "those who are asleep:"  They will rise first.  On the most glorious day when Christ shall come "the dead in Christ will rise first" and then "we will meet them in the air."  Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we too have hope in the resurrection of our bodies at the return of the Son.  Praise Jesus!

Last, but not least, we are to encourage one another with this Truth.  Death is ever present.  Death is ever crouching at the door.  Yet, in Christ there is no longer any fear of death because death is not the end, but the beginning.

Thank God for the gift of life through His Son.  It is only by God's providence that you have been adopted as sons to receive the inheritance.  May God's grace be with you as you strive to bring glory to His name.  Amen.

Preaching Christ Crucified,

Rev. Timothy R. Stokes