The Second Most Controversial Question

This column is slated to run in the July 7th edition of The Justin Texan.

Last time I wrote about the most controversial question in the Bible belt: “What is the gospel?” Today I would like to write about the second most controversial question: “What effect should the gospel have on our lives?”

On the surface of it, this does not seem like a controversial question at all. People expect some kind of effect from religious beliefs. If nothing else, it affects one’s weekly schedule. In other words, adherents attend religious services at places of worship. Muslims go to mosques, Buddhists go to temples, Jews attend synagogue and Christians go to church. In some cases, it affects their daily schedules. Muslims pray five times per day. Some Christians pray before every meal.

But what about the gospel? The claim of Christianity is exclusive; Biblically oriented Christians claim that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (Jn. 14:6). We claim that Christ is God in the flesh (Jn. 1:14). We claim that the message of Christianity has inherent power; the power to change people, not just their schedules. Scripturally, it is the power to bring a spiritually dead man to life (Eph. 2:1-7). Since this is true, the question remains: “What effect does this message have on us?”

To hear some professing Christians tell it, it has no effect. Almost all would agree that it SHOULD cause change in someone’s life, but some say that it does not always follow that a Christian changes. He might have made a religious decision, participated in a religious ritual (walking an aisle or getting baptized), or even joined a church. But do they follow through on their outward commitment? And if they do not, can they be called a Christian?

Once again, the big question is, “What does the Bible say?” What it says gives no hope to the professing Christian who is a hypocrite. The Bible says that those who call Christ “Lord”, preach and even have evidences of spiritual power will not be allowed into heaven if they habitually practice sin (Matt. 7:21-23). It says that those who claim to know the Lord and yet do not obey Him are liars (1 Jn. 2:4). The Apostle John also says that those who habitually practice sin do not know the Lord (1 Jn. 3:4-6). The Apostle Paul gives lists of sins, which if habitually practiced, prove the true nature of the professing Christian (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21).

These are all put forward in the negative sense. How does the Scripture state it positively? 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away and all things have become new! In Luke 9:23 the Lord Himself said that if any man would come after Him, he must deny himself, take up his cross (be willing to die) and follow (order our lives after) Him! The Apostle James says that we must be doers of the Word and not just hearers who deceive only ourselves (Jas. 1:22).

Friends and neighbors, eternity is too long to be wrong about our position with the Lord. The Puritan Thomas Watson, writing in the 17^th century, warned of those who would end up going to Hell with the hope of Heaven. Could that be you? Please, do what the Apostle Paul said and spend some time examining yourself to see if you really are a Christian (2 Cor. 13:5).

If someone claimed to have been hit by a logging truck, you would expect to see some evidence of the impact. Who is bigger? A logging truck or God? Why don’t we see radical changes in the lives of those who name the Name of Christ?

Broadway Baptist Gets the Boot

It was announced on the news of the Dallas affiliate of Fox that Broadway Baptist Church of Fort Worth, TX was voted out of the Southern Baptist Convention today. My wife can testify that when I heard this my response was, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” accompanied by me hopping up and down on the couch. Picture a fatter, uglier Tom Cruise\Oprah moment.

In May I became a Southern Baptist for the first time in my life. This was a big step for me because of my northern Independent Baptist background. In Yankeeville, many of the Independent Baptist churches view the Southern Baptists as a whole with a great deal of suspicion. The fights over the inerrancy of Scripture within the denomination caused most independent pastors to view SBC as a conflicted denomination full of compromise. Of course, a member church which has recently been supportive of homosexuals in their midst can do nothing but further that bad reputation.

The church I am a member of does not relate to any of the SBC drama at all, and is in many ways, completely atypical of a Southern Baptist Church. We practice church discipline, the sermons are expository, repentance AND faith are both preached, and there are no sinner’s prayers repeated. It’s not a country club; it’s a church. It’s about God, not about the good ol’ boys club. It’s about the Bible and no one is hiding behind their “relevance”.

So why am I so happy with the removal of Broadway Baptist? About a year ago I went with a small group of believers to preach at the gay pride parade in Fort Worth. This was the first time I actually preached at a pride parade. When we pulled up, we noticed that the parade was staging in the parking lot of Broadway Baptist. After the shock wore off, we reminded one another of what Jesus said about those on the “broad way” (Matthew 7:13-14). Most of the parade marchers were wearing shirts that read, “Jesus Would Not Discriminate”, which I can only assume came from Broadway Baptist. So, I had my opening springboard. “Does Jesus Discriminate? Yes, the Bible says He will on the day of judgment” (Matthew 7:21-23).

I was the first to preach, being the guy who brought the amplifier. I think I might have said a whole paragraph when a bunch of angry lesbians stormed across the street and started yelling all kinds of things. Apparently their Jesus doesn’t discriminate about the language they use either. One started yelling about how Ruth and Boaz were lovers. It was an experience, to say the least. I could have preached Joel Osteenese and they would probably have had the same reaction. Eventually they settled down and moved off to the side and we were able to preach for about an hour, to the background music of car alarms being set off trying to drown us out. Every open-air preacher should do this at least once in his life (which is probably going to be my grand total).

Broadway Baptist got what they deserve. Any church which actively supports what is condemned in Scripture deserves to be removed from their respective denomination. From hearing the rest of the story, it should have been done a long time ago. Apparently the church leadership thought it might be cool to have homosexual couples listed in their church directory.

The SBC in recent years has made big strides in the area of returning to their Biblical and theological roots. This purging of an apostate church is the best thing that can happen for the SBC. Disciplining a church should be a reminder to all of us that we too can fall into sin and heresy and be removed from membership. It results in purity in the professing body of Christ.

The Most Controversial Question

Note: This essay will appear in The Justin Texan next week.

The most controversial, yet the most illuminating question anyone can ask a professing Christian here in the Bible belt is, “What is the gospel?”. In other words, “What is the Christian message?” Why is this controversial? After all, with so many churches throughout North Texas one would think that this question would cause the least amount of contention of any question that you could ask a church goer.

Could it be that it exposes the ignorance of the average church member regarding the most basic tenet of Christianity? Just the other day I had the opportunity to speak to a woman in her fifties who has been attending churches for many years. These churches included a wide range of denominations; everything from Roman Catholic to non-denominational. I asked her the big question: “What do you think the gospel is?” She said, “You know, I’ve been attending church for years and I have no idea. I have been hoping that someone would tell me (!). Would you please tell me?” And she was very sincere. It was a privilege to be able to explain the gospel to her in a way that made sense.

Folks, there is something desperately wrong when someone who not only lives in the Bible belt, but who regularly attends a non-denominational church in her own town still does not know what the gospel is! The biggest dilemma of all is the fact that probably 90% of the people who attend church cannot answer this question and yet call themselves Christians. How can someone be a Christian and not know what the gospel is?

Imagine that I call a plumber to come fix a drain stoppage in my home. Imagine that he shows up with a plumber’s van outfitted with all of the tools of the trade, a plumber’s uniform with his name sewn neatly above the pocket, even a license proving that he is an approved plumber. But imagine that as soon as he comes into my home he starts fiddling with my light sockets or ceiling fans but never looks under my sink or near a pipe. What would I be forced to conclude? No matter what his van looks like, no matter what his uniform says and no matter what his education may be, he is not a plumber. No, he is an impostor. A plumber should know something about plumbing.

Likewise, if a “Christian” wears the right clothing on Sunday, carries a baptism or church membership certificate, has a Bible, and is respected as a fine upstanding member of the community and yet knows nothing about the gospel, how can they be considered a Christian? Friends, they are impostors. A Christian should know something about the gospel. If you do not, then what message do you trust to be saved from the wrath to come? Faith must have an object and that object must be reliable. If you don’t even know what the object of your faith is, what in the world do you believe? How do you know it is true? How can you even evaluate it if you don’t know what it is?

Another way of asking the question is, “If I had three minutes to live, what would you tell me that I need to do to get right with God?” This is a good question. If you cannot answer it, you have good reason to be concerned about the nature of your own faith. As the Apostle Paul said, “Examine yourself, to see if you are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5). For the answer to this most important question, please visit www.YouGotOurTract.com.

Ray Comfort takes on CBS\Calvin Klein

Please keep Ray Comfort in prayer as this issue unfolds. May God be glorified by someone not just being offended, but taking a stand.

Ray Comfort: America Doesn't Need Calvin Klein's Dirt Designer Calvin Klein has placed a "racy" new advertisement on a five-story-high billboard on a Manhattan building in New York City, which shows half-naked teenagers lying on top of each other in sexually explicit positions. According to TV co-host and best-selling author Ray Comfort, Sex not only sells jeans, it gets massive free publicity on CBS primetime. CBS "The Early Show" (June 15th) more than willingly scrolled over and zoomed into the lusty billboard an amazing sixteen times, as the show's host interviewed an expert on why she thought it was wrong to show such images in public. The usual reasons were given: it wasn't good for children to see such pictures, etc. Comfort says there's another reason why Calvin Klein should rethink the tone of its advertising. Presently there are 673,989 registered sex offenders in the United States,[1] and hardly a day goes by when some child isn't abducted, raped, and murdered. Back in April 1999, ABC TV put a racy billboard of a naked woman lying on her stomach in Comfort's neighborhood in Southern California. The image had a small towel draped across her backside, to keep it legal. Photo of billboard Comfort covered with orange blanket When Comfort saw that, he purchased an 18-foot ladder, climbed up the billboard and stapled a huge orange blanket over that naked woman's body. "I don't want some sexually depraved pervert getting off on ABC's dirt, and raping and murdering my wife or daughter," Comfort says. Comfort then took a picture of the blanketed billboard and released it to the media, in the hope that ABC would take him to court for willful damage of their property. But they didn't. "Calvin Klein's campaign not only reveals that they couldn't care less about the abuse of our women and children, it also shows that they have no regard for what God says is right and wrong," says Comfort. "So Mr. Klein, don't even think of bringing your dirt and dumping it in my neighborhood, because I will be up my ladder with a staple gun in hand before the glue on your smutty image is dry." Ray Comfort debated atheistic evolution on ABC's Nightline in 2007 and earlier this year debated on the BBC. He is the author of some 60 other books including "God Doesn't Believe in Atheists," "How to Know God Exists," and "Evolution: the Fairy Tale for Grownups." He is the publisher of "The Evidence Bible" and more recently, "The Atheist Bible (Unauthorized Version)" and, "The Charles Darwin Bible." His booklet, "The Atheist Test" has sold over a million copies. U.S. Map of sex offenders: [1] http://cybertipline.com/en_US/documents/sex-offender-map.pdf

Which Verse Says It All!

Note: This article appeared in The Justin Texan on May 19, 2009.

A few weeks ago I was privileged to be able to speak to a class at the University of Oklahoma. This isn’t a common occurrence for our ministry; after all, we are open-air preachers. It’s pretty rare to be invited to anything. People would usually rather that we just go away! A professor saw us on the quad and asked if I would come address his classes.

I began each class with my own testimony to God’s saving grace in my life and a brief introduction of our ministry. Afterwards, the professor opened up the floor for questions. It was a wonderful time. Questions like, “Why is Jesus coming back?”, “Is Gandhi in Hell?”, and, “What is the Christian message?” were asked. This resulted in a half an hour of explaining the gospel to each class. What a privilege!

My favorite question of the day was, “What verse do you think sums up the whole Bible?” This is a tough question. To pick one verse out of the 31,102 verses in the Old and New Testaments is a Herculean task. After thinking for a few moments, I answered, “2 Corinthians 5:21”. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (NKJV).

This verse is the gospel in a nutshell. God the Father made Jesus, the eternal Son, to be a sin offering on the behalf of sinners. All of the sins of the children of God were placed on the Son, much like the sins of Israel were placed symbolically on the head of the scapegoat during Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. As the Lord Jesus hung on the cross, He was treated as we deserved to be treated. The whole wrath of God was poured out upon the Son. Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

When we respond to this amazing act of grace with repentance and faith (Acts 20:21), a great exchange takes place. Our sins have been placed on Christ. In return, we are credited with His righteousness. He obeyed the Law of God perfectly and that perfect obedience is credited to us, sinful lawbreakers! God the Father now treats us as He would treat His own Son! He looked upon His Son on the cross as if He were looking at our sins and treated His Son accordingly. He now can treat us as if we were the ones who were tempted in all points and never sinned!

This is the amazing grace that John Newton wrote (and we sing) about; sinners who deserve only Hell getting the perfect righteousness of Christ. We can be found “not guilty” when we stand before God in judgment! There are two conditions to receive this pardon: we must repent (turn from all known sin) and believe (completely abandon ourselves to the work of Christ on the cross). And that’s the kicker. Jesus died for sinners. If you don’t think you are a sinner, then you can be assured that Christ didn’t die for you. The gospel is for those who have been humbled by their own sin and the amazing grace of God expressed at the cross.

Some might say I should have responded with John 3:16. Others might suggest 1 Corinthians 15:3. For my part, I stand amazed by the grace of God in 2 Corinthians 5:21.

ARIS & American Religion

This week a survey has been getting a lot of play in the media regarding the shift in American religious faith. USA Today ran a front page article on Monday, March 9^th on the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). The gist of the research is that all major denominations and religions in America have experienced a quantitative loss in membership over the last 18 years.

One highlight of this survey includes the fact that those who refer to themselves as “none” (or of no religious persuasion) is up from 8% in 1990 to 15% in 2008. Of concern to evangelicals in particular is the fact that 15.8% of those surveyed identified themselves as Baptists, down from 19.3% in 1990. Those who identified themselves as non-denominational remained about the same (14.2%) since 1990. Of course, there is a lot more to this survey than these facts, but these are the pertinent facts when it comes to those of us who do evangelism.

It’s not surprising that the media is using this information as a sort of pealing death knell of Christianity in this nation. Already, those who identify themselves as “nones” seem to be taking this news as validation for their stance. On Tuesday I ran into an agnostic who attempted to rub this in my face as proof that Christianity is losing ground. What did I have to say to that?

Well, here’s what I have to say to that. It’s far worse than the news media and ARIS reports. Everyone who is a pastor of a Southern Baptist church knows that it’s worse. 15.8% of the respondents might consider themselves Baptist, but how many of these are attending church on anything approaching a regular basis? In recent years, the bloated membership rolls of Southern Baptist churches have been an issue at the annual convention. There is a debate on how to count noses; do you count people who became members and who never attend church or don’t you? Apparently, the SBC is content to count them and it’s more than likely that as long as they are considered true blue members by the leadership of the SBC, they consider themselves members as well.

Can someone be considered a Christian who has no desire to align themselves with a local church? The Bible doesn’t seem to teach that they can. In fact, if someone hates his brother, he is considered a murderer, by God’s standard (1 Jn. 3:15). Most professing believers do not attend church because they harbor bitterness in their hearts and in fact hate church members and leadership. This violates the spirit of the Sixth Commandment regarding murder.

So, it’s probably much, much worse than the survey reports in terms of active membership. But we can KNOW it is far worse because of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-23. He said that “many” will go to Hell with the hope of Heaven, calling Him “Lord” as they do so, pointing to their apparently supernatural works. Identifying oneself as a Christian in a survey no more makes one a Christian than me calling myself the President of the United States makes it true either.

How many Christians are there in America? Pollsters will never get it right. Since the Scriptures teach that no one can evaluate another’s true spiritual condition before God, but are instead called upon to “examine themselves” (2 Cor. 13:5), polling Christians about their beliefs is a fool’s errand. Only the Lord can accurately assess who is a true follower and who is not (Jn. 2:23-25). And when He does do that on that great day of reckoning, there will be many surprises.

It’s extremely tempting to look at this poll and say, “See, this is what happens when you don’t evangelize.” Since only 2% of Christians evangelize to begin with, it’s only natural to conclude that we’re going backwards statistically. But ultimately salvation is of the Lord and if He wants to save the lost He can make the rocks cry out and testify even if His professing children won’t. The 2% statistic may be far more accurate in gauging who is a Christian in this nation and who is not.

It is highly ironic that the non-denominational sub-group has held steady over 18 years in spite of the growth of the so-called “mega-churches”. All of the money spent on high power praise bands, lighting, facilities, pastors in trendy clothes, expensive youth programs, media ad infinitum has resulted in zero gain over the last 18 years. If you are a seeker sensitive church guru reading this, my challenge to you is, “Why not just start following the Bible? It can’t be any worse than what you’re doing now.” No, I take that back. It will be worse. The people you have drawn with cotton candy will leave when the solid meat is brought out. But do it anyway, your budgets and big box cathedrals be damned. They are anyway.

It’s probably too late for American Christianity. It’s bankrupt and far worse than ARIS realizes. The only problem is that most who actually espouse American Christianity sound a lot like the church in Laodicea; “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” As the Lord Himself says, we “knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). The only remedy is a tidal wave of true repentance (Rev. 3:19).

New Book on Evangelism

This booklet proves once and for all that confrontational evangelism is the predominant model of evangelism in the New Testament. It is written for pastors, missionaries, evangelists and believers who are passionate for evangelism and for those who are not yet convinced. May the Lord use it to raise up laborers for the harvest.

"Jon Speed has done a wonderful job of showing exactly what it means to fulfill the Great Commission. Evangelism in the New Testament will be a great source of encouragement to those who want to do what Jesus commanded us to do--to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."

--Ray Comfort, Living Waters Publications

"You put into definitive terms what the majority of my personal beliefs are regarding the discussed topic. Your use of pie graphs are, I believe, a great demonstrative tool in emphasizing the statistics. These sorts of tools are quite necessary when presenting a topic of this nature to a potentially disagreeable audience. It could easily be argued that this should be mandatory reading for all pastors, elders and deacons."

--John Legg, Way of the Master Australia & Holy Epidemic

"I don't know how you could more clearly state the need for us as Christians to be involved in evangelism unless you took a 2x4 and hit us over the head with it!"

--Mark Mews (Flagstaff, AZ)

Retail: $9.99 (through Amazon.com)

Special Discount Price: $7.00 (through One Million Tracts)


Blessings,

Jon