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Is “If Something Is True” the Only Criteria for Using Hillsong and Bethel Music? Critique of a John MacArthur Answer

October 14, 2020 / 17 Comments on Is “If Something Is True” the Only Criteria for Using Hillsong and Bethel Music? Critique of a John MacArthur Answer

Like many others, I have a cell phone and when I pull up youtube, it feeds me what I might want to see and it showed me the above video, so I watched (by the way, three days after I published this, the original video was taken down, so I put this up in its place, because it is still at youtube). I must comment. To deal with it in a proper manner, here is a transcript, so you can look at it for reference. I shared the video so you’ll see that it happened and can also hear the intonation in the question and answer.

DARRIUS: Hello, my name is Darrius, and my question is, “Should we listen to songs that have like good Christian lyrics but are ran by false Christians, maybe such as Hillsong or Bethel or those kinds of stuff?”

JOHN: I mean, the bottom line would be that if something is true, then it’s true. You can appreciate the truth of a song if it’s true. There are a lot of songs written by real Christians that are bad theology, really bad theology. There are some songs written by non-Christians that are good theology. But I do think it’s important not to get sucked into those movements. Hillsong is an aberrant movement with really aberrant theology. Bethel is the same, or worse. But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t now and then something they produce that is true and you can sing it as true. So just be discerning. But they are powerful movements, both of them – Bethel because of the Jesus culture music group, Hillsong because of Hillsong music. If they didn’t have that music, they wouldn’t have a movement, either of them probably. But the theology of both, particularly Bethel, is taking the Holy Spirit’s name in vain constantly, constantly. So you don’t want to be a part of that movement. But again, a clock that doesn’t run is right twice a day. So every once in a while people will come across the truth. Okay?

John MacArthur most often gives good answers to questions. I remember in recent days in answer to a question MacArthur criticized Drew Brees, the quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, because he didn’t have a spine or wouldn’t “man-up” in apologizing for his national anthem stand. MacArthur himself is weak in answer to these types of questions. I wish he would “man-up” and give a strong answer to this question. He equivocates and vacillates on something that is very important, related to the worship of God.

The right answer would be this:

No, Darrius, Hillsong and Bethel are false worship, and no one should listen to what they produce. They not only do not please God, but they offend God. It’s not right to offend God. No one should listen to what offends God or give any support to it. He should separate from it. Even if you were to find a few true statements in their songs, they are a counterfeit, attempting to look like the real thing, when they are false. They are strange fire and we should separate from strange fire. God isn’t pleased. They require separation not only to please God, but also for the sake of others. The association, like associating with the idol worship in Corinth, has much more severe ramifications for yourself, but also for others. We need to take a public stand against them, but we also can easily be deceived ourselves.

Furthermore, Darrius, we don’t just judge the music by the words or the lyrics. The medium itself is corrupt. It’s like worshiping the true God in the high places. The form is wrong. It changes the meaning. It corrupts the meaning. We understand God not just by what is true, but also what is good and beautiful. We worship God in the beauty of his holiness. Their music is sensual, fleshly, carnal, and worldly. Paul commanded in Romans 13 not to make provision for the flesh. Their music attracts or allures so many because of its fleshliness. God isn’t worshiped by fleshliness. 1 Peter 2 commands, abstain from fleshly lust. Titus 2 says deny worldly lust. You can’t obey those verses, obey God, and listen to Hillsong and Bethel.

I’ve said before Darrius, that the Hillsong and Bethel movements wouldn’t have anyone without the music. What do you think that means? It’s not because they have true lyrics, but because the music itself is deceiving. It is like the allure of the apostate teachers of 2 Peter 2. They use the music to lure you in and it makes merchandise of its hearers. The music is the vomit that the dog returns to. God does not receive worship that accords with the spirit of this age. That is not acceptable unto Him, and it also gives people a false imagination about God, an idol in the mind. There may be true words, but the meaning of those words is shaped according to the lust. This is how apostasy takes places and scripture says, come out from among them and be separate. That’s what we need to do Darrius.

If the Hillsong and Bethel music is strange fire, which is what MacArthur has said, why doesn’t he say something like what I wrote? Why? MacArthur is wrong in his answer. It is a dangerous answer, much like when MacArthur answered on another occasion that it was fine for a saved person to date an unsaved person, not marry, but to date that person. He is compromising. He is being pragmatic. He doesn’t want to offend those young people, lose them. As a result of what he said, they’ll still be listening to Hillsong and Bethel. These young people will not have the same God in their imagination as the God of the Bible, even if they listen to only the “true” lyrics of the songs.

The bottom line really isn’t, are the lyrics true? The bottom line is, is the apparent worship pleasing to God? Is God pleased by the music, both lyrics and music? The music is not meaningless. The music is not amoral. MacArthur knows this, but he has not stood on this through the years, because he takes a reckless position in his application of scripture. He will comment on cultural issues, even though they are not given clear or plain statements in scripture. We must acknowledge that we can understand truth in the real world. We know what a corrupt word is. We know what the attire of a harlot is. We know that it is wrong to gamble, to smoke crack pipes, to hip thrust in our worship, and to abort babies in the womb, because we apply a second term, a minor premise, in our application. God expects this. This comes out of the truth of natural law or self-evident truth. We know if our children are giving us a rebellious look. It doesn’t have to be defined by a verse. We know when a woman is flirting with a man, even if the Bible doesn’t explain this.

MacArthur says things that are true, but he does not explain them, perhaps to try to scare the young man away from Bethel and Hillsong without giving a real answer. He says, these movements are “powerful.” Really? How? What is the power? It’s not the power of the lyrics, except that they are so simple and so emotional that they are attractive to non-thinking people. The power is in the music, the meewwwzic, Dr. MacArthur. The music sucks people in because it is addictive, it is drug-like, it titillates the flesh. Say that. But no, can’t say that because it would empty out a big chunk of the group. What about the casual, ratty clothes, the stage, the lights, the dancing, the waving arms? Can we not judge this? Nope, not in MacArthur’s world.

He also says that Hillsong and Bethel “blaspheme the Holy Spirit.” That’s a strong statement. How do they blaspheme the Holy Spirit? How? Isn’t it because the Holy Spirit is Holy? The music isn’t Holy. It brings down the Holy Spirit to something common and profane. It isn’t sacred. Is anything sacred anymore? Almost nothing is to evangelicals. They have scorched the earth so that nothing is holy. We as leaders are required to differentiate between the holy and profane. Do that. Please. I beg you.

MacArthur’s vacillation on these sorts of issues will result in the apostasy of his church and others very quickly after he is gone. He has left his people with nothing to equip them to deal with what Satan and the world system are doing in the world. He talks about being discerning. In other words, sort through Bethel and Hillsong and pull out what is good. Nothing is good there. He’s not being discerning himself. He’s not applying scripture himself.

Grace Community supporters should take seriously what I’m writing. Don’t set up straw man arguments, like you often do to these types of criticisms. Don’t approach this issue with, Brandenburg is a flame thrower, he’s not with the doctrines of grace, or he is KJV only. Those are red herrings. They are also not giving an accurate representation of me. Doing that will not stop the slide that will occur with you and your people in the future, because you will not stand for pure worship of God and give biblical instruction on these cultural issues.

Protests and Preaching / Prayer Unequal in California: You Can’t Go to Church, But You Can Violate the Law in Leftist Protests

October 6, 2020 / 2 Comments on Protests and Preaching / Prayer Unequal in California: You Can’t Go to Church, But You Can Violate the Law in Leftist Protests

Yesterday I took the following short video in downtown San Francisco of radical leftist protesters blocking a street–it is slightly over a minute long, and can be seen on YouTube, or you can watch the embedded version below:

People illegally blocking the street for a long time in their cars is fine; there were no fines, no tickets, no penalties of any kind. The “Poor People’s Campaign,” a radical left-wing organization whose platform “demands” crazy things like “establish[ing] 100% debt forgiveness for all borrowers earning less than $50,000; up to $50,000 of debt forgiveness for borrowers earning less than $100,000 … waiv[ing] all interest payments,” enabling illegal immigrants to “work and live without fear of arrest, deportation, or detention,” “ban[ning] the use of force” by police “against people who are unarmed,” so that if a policeman is getting punched in the face by a thug over and over again he just needs to deal with it, and if somehow the criminal is arrested, to “end cash bail” so that he can get back out again and never show up to court, and gobs of other nutty nonsense.

Were there any fines issued for blocking the street and tying up
traffic for a substantial period of time?

No.

Were there any tickets issued? No.

Were the vehicles towed away? No.

Blocking the street to bash Mitch McConnell, to demand a
leftist and activist Supreme Court, to demand trillions of dollars in
spending, to destroy the free market, to scream leftist slogans, to
support socialism, radical Democrats, oppose Republicans, limited
government, and the U. S. Constitution, and so on, is perfectly
acceptable in the California. Certainly if the protestors are not wearing masks or are not socially distanced it is also not a problem.

What about going to church in California? Fines–punishment–threats of
jail time–the whole force of the law bearing down on law-abiding,
peaceful Christians, who do not block streets, scream at people, cause
traffic jams, or demand the confiscation of the property of others in
the name of socialism–all they want is to be left alone to worship God
and obey the Bible. Is that acceptable in California? Nope. No way!
Just ask North Valley Baptist Church pastor Jack Trieber; Grace Community Church pastor John MacArthur; and the many other churches
suffering persecution in California.

No double standard here. Just move on.

Oh wait–you can’t move
on–the leftist crazies are blocking the busy street in downtown, demanding
the end of the American republic.

–TDR

The Combinations of Work at the Start of a Church

September 29, 2020 / 5 Comments on The Combinations of Work at the Start of a Church

Many of you readers know we are starting or planting a church in Oregon right now. We are missionaries. When I say, “we,” I mean my wife and I. My two eighty year old parents are with us, while we start. We are also raising support at the same time, so if you are a pastor or church member out there, we are looking for fellowship in the gospel. In other words, we need support. We will do this in Oregon, and once the church is started, we will go elsewhere to do that again. I would love you to contact me about support. You can get my number and a workable email address at the website of our new church, which is really still a mission (jacksoncountybaptistchurch.com). Please call or email. Thank you. I repeat, we need your help.

We started a church in California in 1987 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the East Bay, north of Berkeley. What I like to say, because it is scriptural, is that we began evangelizing there, and then a church formed out of those who were saved. Some might think that’s just technical, but it is the right way to think. We are building the kingdom through evangelism. We want to get a church started, but we are also wanting to evangelize the area. The two are very closely related, but they are not the same.

Without using gimmicks, which we use none, what does someone do in starting a church? How does it happen? We should look at the Bible. When I think of what should happen, I think of what the Apostle Paul did in Acts. Barnabas and Paul went to Cyprus and they evangelized. When they were done there, they went to Asia Minor and evangelized there. They moved from place to place in Asia Minor too. As a church forms out of evangelism, a pastor, who is trained, must be left. He might be a pastor from somewhere else or trained right there on the ground.

I’m going to tell you what I’m doing right now, because I’m in the midst of doing it. It’s not as if you couldn’t be doing the same thing where you are, because this is not some secret. It is very basic, which is what you read in the New Testament.

Begin covering the area with the gospel. I spend a chunk of the week going door-to-door. Perhaps you wouldn’t do it, because of Covid-19. It’s not been a hindrance at all. The worst that happened was an older man with a cane, who left his house with insane anger in his eyes and asked if I had left the tract on his door. I said, yes. He said, that’s littering. I just looked at him, because it was a patent lie. He was angry, because he hates Christianity. I was holding my mask in my hand right in front of him. He said, where’s your mask? He wasn’t wearing one. I just looked down at my mask I was holding. I was standing there outdoors with no one, besides him, within 100 feet of me. There were two obvious points. Where was his mask and why did he walk within six feet without one? I was talking to no one within six feet and carrying a mask. I asked one question, where’s your mask, sir? He didn’t answer. He said, “I’m calling the police.” It was fine in part because he confronted me on my way out to my car.

I want to keep preaching the gospel. Today I went 2 1/2 hours. I had four conversations. Two were with younger men, both who claimed to be spiritual, one more skeptical and the other more pantheistic. They were both long conversations and one of them might have a future. The other two were with an older religious man, who didn’t know the gospel, and he couldn’t keep talking, but he was interested in meeting again to hear the gospel. The other was a woman who had just finished dialysis, but she did want to know the gospel, except she was too tired. These kinds of conversations happen almost every time I go out. I’m trying to go out 2-3 hours 6 days a week.

So, I want to get coverage. This is fulfilling, preach the gospel to every creature. It is sowing the seed like the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, making sure it falls everywhere.

Second, out of the coverage, you can get some evangelistic Bible studies. I just talked about people two paragraphs ago, who were potential for an evangelistic study. One of our original group is starting in on an evangelistic study with someone I met door-to-door, who was interested in a Bible study. Maybe it will keep going, maybe it won’t, but these are available for people.

My wife does these evangelistic studies. She’s got one going herself, and maybe two. When you have ladies, it helps if your wife can do this.

Third, disciple converts. When someone makes a profession, we give a Bible and we have an initial study. Then we get into a thirty week discipleship. Everyone goes there. If someone is really saved, he will follow Jesus Christ. His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. That voice is scripture. I assume true believers want the Word of God.

Included in discipleship is corporate worship. We hold services: Sunday School, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and then a midweek time. We want to get someone to all of those. In those times, you reinforce the individual discipleship or individual discipleship reinforces the services — either/or, it doesn’t matter. People learn how to pray, to give, to sing, to fellowship, to live holy, to be separate from the world, and to minister.

We immerse new believers. This is part of making a disciples in addition to teaching them to observe all things Christ commanded. Lord-willing, we will be baptizing at least five adults on Saturday. We are renting a motel room with an indoor pool that we can reserve for just us for an hour. We are looking forward to more.

Help the new believers learn how to evangelize. This is perfecting the saints for the work of the ministry. After a church is started, an evangelist or missionary should be leaving other people to continue the work. They can’t do that if they are not trained to do that.

Fourth, every person in your new group has a circle of influence. Start talking to everyone that all of them know. They have family, brothers, sisters, parents, children, aunts, uncles, co-workers, and friends. Start getting evangelism appointments with every possible person. This is actually where the most people listen. People’s lives change and they are the best testimony to other people.

This is what I see. A new convert talks to her best friend. A new convert talks to a co-worker. A new convert talks to a sister or brother. A new convert talks to her parents. There are a lot of these people. One person might have ten to twenty other people.

Much more is required to get a church started, but these are four basic activities that work together to see it happen. This will spread the gospel and it will get a church started, two closely related jobs.

Why Does the Church Sing When It Is Assembled? Part Two

September 16, 2020 / Leave a comment

Part One

A true reason for faithfulness to gather with the congregation of the Lord is to join the congregation in singing to the Lord. Recent government actions target singing in particular, seeing it as non-essential. Some churches have argued it is essential. Why is it essential though? What would be the argument for singing being essential in a church? Some of what I’ve seen in either evangelical, fundamentalist, or even separatist churches doesn’t seem essential. Representing what’s happened, the Sacramento Bee said at one point this summer:

The mandate, issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials a week ago on July 1, seemed destined to be combated by churches, especially those that consider singing particularly essential to worship.

On the other hand, an online magazine, The Conversation, defends continuation of singing in church:

When people sing, sound runs through the body, giving rise to emotion and facilitating transformation. It acts as a natural antidepressant by releasing endorphins, the feel-good chemical. Studies have also linked singing with improved mental alertness, memory and concentration through increased oxygenated blood to the brain. Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg found that changes in the brain during worship make people “nicer, more forgiving, and trustful.”

This sounds like what many churches think they’re doing today with their singing. It’s not scriptural, but it is typically self-centered. Later the same article said:

Those with praise teams and bands that lead the congregation in song found it easier to provide music in online services – with fewer people, social distancing was easier to maintain. As a result, they continued to rehearse and perform in livestreamed or prerecorded services.

The crucial text here is that these teams and bands “provide music.” They are providing music for an online audience, not God. Nowhere does scripture say that church leaders should provide music for its members. Members provide music for God.

Consequence of a Change In Direction or Audience

Worship is vertical. That’s the direction — up. It goes to God. It’s like incense from the altar of incense, going upward into the nostrils of God. Because of that, the question is whether God will accept it. It must be, as Romans 12:1 says, “holy, acceptable unto God.” When Nadab and Abihu, two priests, messed with the incense recipe, God killed them. That’s how serious He is about what goes up and into His nostrils.

When the music sung or played clashes with the nature of God, because it isn’t being offered unto God, but unto an audience of men, it changes God in the imagination of the people involved. They imagine a god who would find it acceptable, but if it isn’t acceptable to God, then it is the wrong God. This turns into idolatry, worship of a false god.

Worshiping the wrong god arises out of worshiping the wrong way. To start, it isn’t really worship, because it is centered on the people. So think of it. The people are the object of the worship. They are the false god. This is worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator, a Romans 1 violation.

People then imagine a god that is more like people. Guess what? Their false god receives regular sensual and fleshly offerings, all about desire. This church music that is “essential” isn’t even accepted by God. It is “essential” to gratify the lust of the singers and the true audience, themselves and their fellow worshipers of self.

The nature of music in churches has changed drastically in the last century. It has a considerable impact. God doesn’t get worshiped. The people don’t understand God. I believe it alters a true understanding or imagination of God more than a doctrinal statement. It results in the acceptation of many other bad practices.

Churches don’t even like what God likes. If they had to offer it to Him, they would be so upset that they would quit. They can’t worship Him. They can’t sacrifice their own feelings. It’s about them and not God. Church leaders very often know that, so they just relent to keep their crowd for even worse reasons.

Today, feelings are choreographed or orchestrated by the music. They are feelings that do not match up with the God of the Bible. The “worshipers” very often think that feeling is the Holy Spirit. Since they got that feeling, they think or better feel they are aligned with the Holy Spirit. This changes their understanding of true spirituality. Even though they aren’t spiritual, they think they are. They go along either without the Holy Spirit or not controlled by the Holy Spirit, and yet they are deceived into thinking they possess the Holy Spirit or are controlled by Him. They are very far more prey to deceit of all kinds.

Sensuality becomes a value to those using it. They feel justified then in being sensual. They’ve been using it in church, so “it must be fine too in their everyday lives.” I’m saying, their values change.

Values relate to God. He is of the highest value. All that is true in value proceeds from the right assessment of God. Without God as a true value, the values of a person change. This changes his practice.

The consequences I’ve described have completely mutated the church into something of a different nature than what God wants it to be. God isn’t being worshiped. That’s very bad. It’s bad enough. However, that won’t get fixed because the church doesn’t consider the effect.

Churches are more like the world. The world is fleshly and sensual. This allure to the flesh is a characteristic of apostasy in 2 Peter 2. Read that chapter. False teachers use these allurements to deceive. Instead of turning the world upside down, the world has turned the church upside down. John wrote that the love of God does not abide in those who love the world. James wrote that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Rather than being a true, pure relationship with God, it is spiritual adultery, where the church prostitutes itself with the world.

It is no wonder that the world gets worse and worse. The church isn’t salt or light. If the church is going to be superficial, banal, trite, and crude, then why wouldn’t the world become that much worse? The world is exponentially more ugly than ever in my lifetime. Churches pave the way.

The church isn’t centering on the one and true God in its singing and playing today. Why is it singing? It isn’t for a good reason or in a good way.

Why Does the Church Sing When It Is Assembled?

September 14, 2020 / Leave a comment

Congregational and church choir singing has been in the news recently with state governments regulating churches to sing both as a congregation and with choirs only with masks. That’s in the news and it gets our attention. However, I want to talk about why churches sing at all when they gather. Does it matter whether the state stops churches or not?

The Bible Teaches Congregational Singing

The New Testament doesn’t say much about congregational singing. The Old Testament reveals loads about it. When Israel gathered, she was to sing to God. This is clear. God inspired Psalms to be sung to Him by the congregation of Israel. Whatever God constitutes for His Old Testament assembly, He wants for His New Testament one, if He has not terminated it or shelved it for a season. He hasn’t ended singing. The New Testament says enough to know that God wants the church to follow along with what He intended for Israel. Heaven sings and will sing to God (Revelation 4-5).

As to the church, Jesus sang in the church (Hebrews 2:12). In the upper room gathering of Matthew 26:30 (Mark 14:26), “when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” This was Jesus ordaining for the church what was also already instituted for Israel. Then you see Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 4:19.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

It’s obvious these parallel passages include congregational singing, because Paul writes, “Speaking to yourselves,” which means “speaking among yourselves.” This word for “speaking” is singing and playing musical instruments as seen in the words, “singing and making melody.”

The Audience of Congregational Singing

The answer to why the church sings as a congregation relates to the audience of the singing, which is always God. We know that the church is singing to God, because that’s what scripture says dozens of times, perhaps exclusively. The only argument for the singing to be directed to others besides God are the phrases “speaking to yourselves” and then “teaching and admonishing one another.” Those are outliers to everything someone will read in scripture about the audience of worship. I don’t believe either of those are ordering the church to sing to people.

Since the sole audience of the singing of the congregation of Israel and the church is God, the interpretation of “to yourselves” should be understood in light of that context of all of scripture. We should interpret the exception in light of every other occasion. The word translated “to” is the Greek preposition en, which has multiple meanings.

God won’t hear singing from the lost (Psalm 66:18), so the singing is “among yourselves,” one of the many meanings of that word. This is the same understanding of the very same Greek phrase two times in Matthew 20:26-27:

But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.

The Apostle Paul also uses the very same two words in Romans 1:13 among other places.

Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.

The second construction, “teaching and admonishing one another,” found only in Colossians 3:16, should be taken as the following:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom;

teaching and admonishing one another

in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

In other words, the word of Christ is taught and admonished to church members, and psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are to be sung to the Lord. It really does come down to how the verse is diagrammed. There are many who have taught this verse in this manner. “Teaching and admonishing” modify “the word of Christ dwell in you.” “You” of “in you” is plural, so Paul is talking about congregational teaching and admonishing of the church.

Early in my preaching (over ten years ago), I did connect teaching and admonishing with the singing, but I called it a byproduct or a result of singing to the Lord. I said that when singing is directed to God in an acceptable manner, then the church is edified. That’s probably true, that it is a byproduct, but it’s not what the verse is saying. How I’m explaining that verse now fits into the understanding of all of the rest of the Bible.

Exceptional usages or understandings of verses should not guide the practice of the church. Congregational singing is worship, that is, it is an offering presented to God. One could and should call it a sacrifice of the lips of a church in fitting with Hebrews 13:15:

By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

God takes the praise of congregational singing in the New Testament like He would the offering of an acceptable animal sacrifice in the Old Testament.

What Happened to Church Singing

The biggest change to church singing started in the 19th century when churches changed the audience of singing. The change came from reasoning that music could be used to attract unsaved people. This resulted in the adaptation of music to an unbelieving audience. The concept of “gospel music” arose out of this false concept. Now instead of being worship of God with God as the audience, it became a means of attracting unsaved people or so-called carnal Christians to a gathering. Instead of being an assembly of believers, it was a mixed congregation. This shift has had a horrendous and cataclysmic effect on the church that hasn’t been eliminated and has only become worse.

A very large majority of churches, I would estimate at over 90 percent, uses music. It isn’t worship. It is a method or a tool. The primary audience, if not exclusive audience, of the music isn’t God, but people. Out of that arose such explanations as, “we’re preparing the hearts of the hearers for preaching.”

I just heard Todd Friel this week explain on his “Wretched” podcast something I’ve heard many times, that is, the music has a purpose of passing along doctrine and practice to another generation. He made that point by criticizing the content of contemporary Christian music versus more traditional hymns, saying that the former does not include teaching on the Trinity. Only the old hymns have the Trinity in their lyrics. As a result, these doctrines aren’t being learned, he said. He said that music needs to have the important function of passing along doctrine, because people can learn it easier when it is set to music. He used a theme song from an old sitcom as an illustration, saying that he couldn’t get the useless lyrics out of his mind, and that’s what church music should be doing too — using sitcom style music to teach dense doctrinal lyrics about the nature of the Trinity.

Do you understand that what Friel is saying is very, very wrong? It isn’t scriptural. His take on church music or congregational singing is not according to the Bible. However, it is not untypical. What will occur and has already occurred in a wide scale manner because of the idea he expressed is that churches will put substantive lyrics to very trite, superficial, ungodly music. Those songs might have the Trinity in them, but they will disrespect God and give an imagination of Him that clashes with His true nature. The music is “catchy” for a purpose, and this frivolous, profane, worldly, or often sensual music is chosen or composed apparently to keep the lyrics in its adherents’ heads.

God Is the Only Audience of Worship

Music in the church changed because the audience changed, first the music and then the lyrics. When God was the only audience of singing, the music and the lyrics were vastly different. The question changed. Instead of, what does God want, it became, what do people want? It wasn’t just what do people want, but what do unsaved people want? Now it is often, what do millennials want, what do the young people want, or what do the people of the region or the culture want?

God isn’t worshiped when a church offers Him or presents to Him what people want. God is worshiped by giving Him what He wants. God is the only audience of worship. The music should be sober, reverent, sacred, and all and only the attributes consistent with who God is. At a root level, the church isn’t even singing to God though. The choice of the music was based on what it would do to or for the people attending. This music isn’t even being offered to God. It is being used as a kind of allure to church or a manipulation of the attendees.

What I’m writing doesn’t just apply to contemporary Christian music, that might be hip-hop, rap, heavy metal, or just classic rock. It applies to the trite, carnival-like music of the original revivalistic music, that is the forefather of the perversion as its modern iteration. Churches still use the quick paced, energized songs that placate the spirit of the age. They provide a feeling that their singers consider a manifestation of the spirit. It conforms to sentimentalism and deceives people against actual, true love of God.

I understand some of the motivation. Leaders want their people to be excited about God. The music excites people. It’s like an artificial sweetener. It choreographs excitement. True affection doesn’t come through the stirring of passions. It comes through proper, right thinking about God.

Before someone ever thinks about the effect of the music on the people, the question should be, should people anyway be the consideration for the choice of music? Should it only be what God wants? The right question that I’m posing could be followed by another question, why did the church stop singing the psalms? Psalm singing did not fit the change from God as the audience to people as the audience. Psalms were too difficult or unpopular to sing and especially to attract unconverted people. The church stopped singing them and replaced them with loads of pablum.

Since the advent of the age of people-centered music in churches, almost entirely from the mid to late 19th century, music changed. A correction requires discarding a very large percentage of the music the church has used since then. Acceptable songs have been written since the mid to late 19th century, but relatively very few. Some call many of these songs, the old hymns. If those are the old hymns, we need the older hymns. Very few of those hymns match a true understanding of worship. They weren’t composed with God as the focus or audience. They were meant to do something other than sing to God.

(To Be Continued)

The Simplicity of God

August 16, 2020 / 2 Comments on The Simplicity of God

A good question for anyone to answer is, Who is God? Is that question easy to answer? If it is, you answer it. What would you say?

Your wrong answers might mean that you don’t believe in God, you don’t have God, and you don’t know God. Each of those mean that you are not saved. Only God saves. He’s not going to save everyone and belief in Him is required. Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17:3:

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God

The assumption here is that if this is life eternal, then in contrast is something that is death eternal. If someone doesn’t know the only true God, there is no eternal life for him, so eternal death. In his Body of Divinity, on the “Being of God” Thomas Watson answers the question like others have:

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

I don’t want to scare you about your shortcomings in the knowledge of God. However, your aspiration should be to know God and worship Him in truth. We know that people do worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. In the history of Christian doctrine, an attribute of God not listed by Thomas Watson in his answer is “the simplicity of God.” The simplicity of God does separate God from His creatures, which distinguishes the Creator from His creatures.

The simplicity of God isn’t demeaning God. To say God is simple is to contrast God with complexity, which requires the existence of parts. As an example, God is not the sum of parts, like we are. God is love (1 John 4:8). We are not love. Love can be a part of what we are, something that characterizes us as does a number of other parts.

God’s creatures can be distinguished between them and their characteristics. We have attributes. God is His attributes. The attributes of God cannot be distinguished from who God is as God. God is the love by which He loves.

God is self-existent, so He just is. Not for us, His creatures. God has given us our existence. God does not derive Who He is from anyone or anything else. All creatures owe their being to God.

The divine attributes of God are the essence of God. They are essential to His being. For example, if God is not omnipotent, He is not God. So He is all of His attributes in an indivisible whole. If He was anything but the perfection of those attributes, He would not be God.

The attributes of God are not parts of God. They are God’s own being. The creatures of God are made up of parts. God cannot add to or lose any of Who He is. No difference can be made between all of Who He is.

When Romans 3:23 says that we fall short of the glory of God, it speaks of a fundamental difference between God and His creatures. God has no part, because He is only whole. God does not fall short in any attribute. This is His wholeness. Jesus too is the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col 2:9). Jesus did not and does not fall short of the glory of God. He is God (John 1:1). He is of the same nature as the Father. He is full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

I’ve given scriptural proofs of what has been called the simplicity of God, but it is revealed in that God is love, God is life, God is light, God is powerful, God is good, God is true, God is faithful, God is holy, God is righteousness, God is peace, and God is joy. These are not parts. They are God. His simplicity is the absence of parts.

Something composite or made up of parts has every component dependent upon every other one. God is not dependent upon anything. Being good is not distinct from God. He is goodness. We possess goodness distinct from who we are. This is not the case with God.

God is infinite. God has no potential to be in a different state than what He is or who He is. He is not subject to place or time, each of which would require God to be dependent on something or someone else for who He is, which we know could be only His creation. God has no variableness because He does not exist in relations to others or other things. He just is. This is the simplicity of God.

COVID-19 and Churches Subject to the Higher Powers of Romans 13

August 3, 2020 / 24 Comments on COVID-19 and Churches Subject to the Higher Powers of Romans 13

Government response to COVID-19 challenged Christian thinking on Romans 13 and other like New Testament passages. In other terms, it sharpened ecclesiology. One might call it a test or trial that aided sanctification. In the middle of this test, growth occurs. A church might look and act differently in a matter of months and say something it never said before that seems to contradict former statements and stated doctrines or practices. It might sound like it is contradicting itself. Everyone and every church needs the opportunity to change. That’s even a reason why the Jezebel of Revelation 2:20 was given space to repent, including by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

People don’t want to change, if in the middle of the change, they get clubbed both for changing or for not changing fast enough. They’ll just keep their head down to avoid the carnage. This reflects what Paul commands the church in 1 Thessalonians 5:14, “Be patient with all men.” Especially young people need to be given the opportunity to fall and get back up again. Church discipline has the purpose of restoration, which takes some time. One could notice how patient Jesus was with his disciples. They had to change, but they were given time to own their beliefs.

Sanctification itself is a lifetime engagement. Not until we are glorified do we arrive. Until then we see through a glass darkly. I’m not going to make major changes any longer at my age, but I’m still changing and growing. I’ve got more to learn and I love it.

Someone may have written earlier, “civil government should be obeyed and submitted to by Christians,” and, “Peter told a persecuted group of believers to accept and obey their authorities.” Those statements don’t contradict disobedience to civil government and authorities. As has become popular verbiage, the application of Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 isn’t binary.

Romans 13 1 states:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

The important two words regarding the application of Romans 13 to the government response to churches during COVID-19 are “be subject.” Maybe next important are “higher powers.” An important word for application is hierarchical. “Be subject” doesn’t mean “submit.” It means, “place yourself under.” There are higher powers and even higher powers. The highest power is God and when someone places himself under higher powers, there is always the very highest power, God that arbitrates all subjection.

As subjection relates to the husband and wife relationship, the husband is a higher power, but the wife submits to her husband (submits different than subjects) “as unto the Lord.” The Lord helps a woman submit to a knuckle head. She recognizes that above him is the Lord. She is ultimately submitting to the Lord, which helps her submit in the short term to a man.

At some point, a church that submits itself to civil government can see that it clashes with the highest power. Right then, in accordance with hierarchicalism, it circumvents or bypasses the higher power for the highest power. The church is still subject to civil government, but does not submit to civil government because it contradicts God.

Even the Constitution of the United States recognizes a highest power that gives power to the government. The authors of the Constitution limited the powers of the federal government in the Bill of Rights, acknowledging that men possess certain rights from God, not from government. This includes the right to the free exercise of religion, what people call “the free exercise clause,” which reads: “Congress shall make no law. . . . prohibiting the free exercise thereof [religion].”

Civil government does not define the exercise of religion. At least according to religion, God does. Civil government does not have power either to define the exercise of religion or to regulate it.

Government in the United States, whether local, county, state, or federal, has an interest in the safety of its citizens. To what degree can the power of the state function in regulating its citizens? Every citizen walks out his front door with many risks and also risking others. The government can’t eliminate all risk and it doesn’t have the power to do that. If it did, it could take away every liberty any of us possess.

There are 39.51 million people in California. I’m saying that is 39,510,000 people. 9,399 have reportedly died of COVID-19. I did the math. That’s .00023788914 or .023% or two one-hundredths of a percent. You can correct me if you think I’m wrong. Let me apply this math to Oregon. 333 have reportedly died in Oregon of COVID-19. There are 4,281,000 in Oregon where I live. That is .00007894736 or .0078 percent or seven one-thousandths of a percent. I will risk seven one-thousandsths of a percent for the freedom to practice my religion.

I could become more eggheaded. I could ask, what percentage of these above people died in a nursing home? Officially over 25% of all COVID-19 deaths have occurred in nursing homes. I did that math too. There are 157,000 COVID deaths in the United States and 40,273 are nursing homes.

Abortions constitute over 800,000 or more deaths every year in the United States. You could see how that Christians, who believe abortion is murder, might see this protected and even supported practice as a contradiction. Also certain massive and regular political protests are being allowed by the same governments all over the country. The same governments that restrict churches are in writing permitting these protests. All the West Coast states deemed cannabis businesses to be essential.

A major reason for the free exercise of religion is incapability of government to legislate morality. How damaging is immorality? God wants worship. In the face of death, someone needs preparation to meet God. Is soul solace essential during a pandemic? Civil government cannot abrogate moral law. It cannot say, “No, there is no eternal life and eternal death, only physical life and physical death.” The government supercedes its power, both by the judgment of God and even by the judgment of the Constitution, when it prohibits free exercise of religion.

Regarding COVID-19, where does civil government overstep its authority? How does it violate the free exercise of religion? It does that when it says a church cannot meet. County, state, and federal governments in the United States have revealed their interest in intruding on the rights of churches. Churches must submit to the highest power when only higher powers, lesser powers than the highest power, violate the highest power.

Churches now are defying their government. They have the right to do this. Perhaps they started out submitting to the government edicts regarding COVID-19. Because they are not doing so anymore isn’t a contradiction. Much of what is happening is new. Through further evaluation and new and better information, churches are applying scripture and submitting to God rather than men (Acts 5:29). They are subject to the higher powers, but not at the expense of the highest power.

Another Quixotic Whiff for Mark Ward on the Bible and Its Preservation

July 19, 2020 / 24 Comments on Another Quixotic Whiff for Mark Ward on the Bible and Its Preservation

With full disclaimer, from my childhood I recall Gilligan and the fearless crew on the uncharted desert isle. Mr. Howell, the Professor, and Skipper are dressed as women in an attempt to fool some visiting natives looking for a “white goddess” to throw into their volcano. Not expecting any of those three to pull it off, the Skipper orders first mate, Gilligan, to “dress up like a girl.” The words since stuck in my brain Gilligan repeated again and again, “You can’t make me! You can’t make me! You can’t make me!” Everyone knows how that ended.

Mark Ward has spent years working an argument with his “King James-Only brothers” for them to chuck the translation based upon readability, intelligibility, or understanding. He wrote a whole book on it. Ward made “a vow regarding the KJV.” He wrote:

I will not and cannot discuss textual criticism with my brothers and sisters in Christ who insist on the exclusive use of the King James Version. I will discuss only vernacular translation.

“You can’t make him! You can’t make him! You can’t make him!” After years tilting at the vernacular windmill (tilting may be a false friend of Cervantes), Ward broke that vow in a recent published journal article, where he instead dusted off the very, very oft employed “Which TR?” argument instead (I have answered it here, here, here, here, here, and many more times). Because I’ve already argued this, I’m not going to argue with Ward’s article. I’m saying, read what I already wrote.

I confess after these now several years, that Ward still fails to understand or at least not represent accurately the biblical and historical doctrine we teach. I’ve written it directly to Ward and he still chooses to strawman it. As a type of irony, the same journal makes this statement in an earlier article entitled “Role of Biblical Creationism in Presuppositional Apologetics”:

Beyond the theological incompatibilities already discussed, the evolutionary model simply contravenes the clear and straightforward meaning of a number of other biblical passages that emphasize God’s direct and immediate role in creation as well as truth-affirmations about the context, timing, and goal of creation.

Modern textual criticism parallels “the evolutionary model.” The problem I and many others, including the “confessional bibliologists” (whom Ward inaccurately puts in a different category than me), would be represented by writing the same sentence above with a few changed words.

Beyond the theological incompatibilities already discussed, the modern textual criticism model simply contravenes the clear and straightforward meaning of a number of other biblical passages that emphasize God’s direct and immediate role in preservation as well as truth-affirmations about the context, timing, and goal of the preservation of scripture.

If someone believes what scripture says, then he has to believe what scripture says. Not believing what scripture says isn’t believing what scripture says. Modern textual criticism does not buttress its position on the teaching of scripture, which is also confessional or historical. Ward does not arrive at what scripture says, because scripture isn’t the basis of his position. In another bit of irony, Ward has attempted to tether himself to scripture when he makes his one vernacular argument from scripture, 1 Corinthians 14, that edification requires intelligibility.

I’ve followed Ward long enough to know that he didn’t start with his intelligibility argument from 1 Corinthians 14 (read what I’ve written here, here, and here). I contend, he noticed that our side takes its position from scripture, like a young earth creationist does, so he came late with the biblical argument as a corollary. I’m open to be proven wrong on that. As time passed, Ward referred to that argument more and more, seeing it as perhaps the one that could gain the most traction with people who started with the Bible. If scripture is so important to which to refer for positions, I invite him to start doing that on the whole issue.

Presuppositionalism starts with the Bible. Evolutionists presuppose too. They aren’t neutral, they just have different presuppositions. However, we don’t call evolutionists, which would be old earth creationists, presuppositionalists. Ward doesn’t follow biblical presuppositions. He doesn’t deal with anything related to this aspect of bibliology like a presuppositionalist. By the way, just to head this off at the pass, someone could use the lame argument (I’ve read it) that Greg Brahnsen wasn’t a confessional bibliologist and supported modern textual criticism, so the perfect preservation position must not be presuppositional. That is an anecdotal apologetic that doesn’t support a presuppositional one. It’s a loser.

To start any discussion on the Bible, someone should ask, “Does this represent what the Bible teaches on the subject?” Starting with science led to numerous wrong positions on origins, that now must be unraveled with DNA and seeing a cell in detail under a microscope. God wants us to believe what He says. Ward and others like him do not take a faithful or believing view, because they don’t establish what scripture teaches first and then believe it. All “models” should start with scripture, because God’s Word is truth, or what is accurate to call true science.

How do we know that God created the earth in six literal, twenty-four days? Scripture says so. Yes, but evidence shows something different. Scientists list much evidence. They’ve done that to the effect of many Christians rejecting what the Bible says or then going about to change what the Bible says to fit the “evidence.” How do we know God preserved His Word perfectly, every Word? Words not just a general Word that allows for word changes? Scripture says so. That’s also what Christians have believed. Textual critics list much evidence. They’ve done that to the effect of many Christians rejecting what the Bible says or then going about to change what the Bible says to fit the “evidence.”

Jeff Riddle and the ones known as “confessional bibliologists” (why wouldn’t I be referred to as one? See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and many other places) seem to merit Ward’s attention by not settling on Scrivener as an answer to a written text. Perhaps it seems to him like he could get some mileage from them, because if they believe there are some variances between TR editions like he illustrates in his article, then they will be willing to accept even more variances and everyone can then be a big happy family in a modern version world.

If the confessional bibliologists take Hill’s position, then they take the same one I’ve been advocating. There isn’t a thin piece of copy paper between all of us in doctrinal position. I’ve said for years though, that asking for the exact settled text is more of a trap being laid, to be used for the reverse engineer argument. What I’ve written is that the words are preserved and available. The translators of the TR translated from something and that is easy to see in the commentaries written in the 17th and 18th centuries. This respects what the Bible says about itself, what God says about His own Word, honors and worships Him. Even Kurt Aland reports (“The Text of the Church?” in Trinity Journal, Fall, 1987, p.131):

[I]t is undisputed that from the 16th to the 18th century orthodoxy’s doctrine of verbal inspiration assumed this Textus Receptus. It was the only Greek text they knew, and they regarded it as the ‘original text.’

He also wrote in The Text of the New Testament (p. 11):

We can appreciate better the struggle for freedom from the dominance of the Textus Receptus when we remember that in this period it was regarded even to the last detail the inspired and infallible word of God himself.

His wife Barbara writes in her book, The Text of the New Testament (pp. 6-7):

[T]he Textus Receptus remained the basic text and its authority was regarded as canonical. . . . Every theologian of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (and not just the exegetical scholars) worked from an edition of the Greek text of the New Testament which was regarded as the “revealed text.” This idea of verbal inspiration (i. e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text) which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, was applied to the Textus Receptus.

Quoting the Alands is a debate technique. The most scholarly of the enemies agree too. Both sides should just agree on that. The Alands, however, are just reporting though among many, many others what Richard Capel wrote:

[W]e have the Copies in both languages [Hebrew and Greek], which Copies vary not from Primitive writings in any matter which may stumble any. This concernes onely the learned, and they know that by consent of all parties, the most learned on all sides among Christians do shake hands in this, that God by his providence hath preserved them uncorrupt. . . . As God committed the Hebrew text of the Old Testament to the Jewes, and did and doth move their hearts to keep it untainted to this day: So I dare lay it on the same God, that he in his providence is so with the Church of the Gentiles, that they have and do preserve the Greek Text uncorrupt, and clear: As for some scrapes by Transcribers, that comes to no more, than to censure a book to be corrupt, because of some scrapes in the printing, and ‘tis certain, that what mistake is in one print, is corrected in another.

Mark Ward and others like him are taking the new position, the reactionary one, that arose out of mid-19th century modernism and rationalism. His position, and the biblical and the true Christian one, the faithful one, do not and cannot meet.**********************
Watch this and others like it. This is a real apologist in a biblical sense.

I have found the identical experience with Muslims to whom I have evangelized. He’s obviously directing this toward men like James White. What a respectful, true servant of God here. It’s easy to see if you match him up against James White.

The Myth of the Recovering Fundamentalist

July 15, 2020 / 10 Comments on The Myth of the Recovering Fundamentalist

I’ve been a fundamentalist. I’m not one. Do I consider myself to have “recovered”? I left fundamentalism. I separated from it. I didn’t escape it. I didn’t recover from it. I stopped being a fundamentalist. I didn’t go through a process of recovery. I saw it was wrong to be one, so I stopped being one. I did some separation from fundamentalist organizations and institutions, but that’s not all that I’ve separated from in my life. Sanctification itself is a process of separation. Be ye holy means be ye separate.

If someone really understands fundamentalism, what it is, he knows there are good things about fundamentalism itself, including ideological and institutional preservation or conservation. The idea of fundamentalism, which some fundamentalists like to use to describe their continued support of fundamentalism, has good parts to it, worthy of respect. Those parts should be and can be kept. They are biblical. In other words, don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

On the other hand, the concept of recovering from fundamentalism smacks of going back to something of normalcy in the realm of psychology. “Recovery” is a common terminology now for “getting better” from mental illness. Very often today it is used for the process of discontinuing an addiction to drugs or alcohol. These are considered diseases and recovery includes treatment for the addiction so as to prevent a relapse. People who use recovery to speak of fundamentalism or anything religious are treating it parallel to types of apparent mental illness or psychological disorders.

Fundamentalism itself isn’t a disorder or a mental illness or an addiction. The use of “recovery” isn’t true. Someone does recover from some illness or physical injury. He might even recover from the pain of a difficult time in his life. There may be a death in a family, a runaway child, loss of a job, repossession of a house, a splintered marriage, or a lingering illness. Using recovery as a description of departing from fundamentalism is a pejorative to deride what someone came from. It isn’t helpful anymore than it would be to mock Mormons after someone left Mormonism.

John Ellis professes to have been a fundamentalist and then to have become a drug addict. He testifies that later he was converted to Jesus Christ, and on July 8, he wrote a post advocating the Recovering Fundamentalist podcast. Ellis starts with this paragraph:

For those who didn’t grow up in it, the world of fundamentalism is beyond weird; it’s utterly foreign. How do you make sense of rules that often include things like prohibitions on women wearing pants and the condemnation of music with syncopation and watching movies in the movie theater? For those of us who grew up in fundamentalism, those rules, and their many, many companion rules, are well-known. However, most people lack a touch point for our fundyland experiences. This has resulted in ex-fundies using the internet, specifically social media, to connect and share our mutual experiences. These online relationships take many forms, from the nostalgic all the way to embittered wholesale denunciations. For many ex-fundies, though, our reminiscences take the form of an honest appraisal of the good and bad found within fundamentalism. Count me among that latter group.

Recovering Fundamentalist features three evangelical pastor friends, who, having left what they call IFB (independent fundamental Baptists) or fundamentalism, talk about their experience. I would contend that they left a mutation of fundamentalism, a virulent, pragmatic form of revivalism or Charismaticism, a strain that especially affected the American South, even as sampled in their video, that is neither independent, fundamental, or even Baptist. This contrasts almost 180 degrees from the beginning of fundamentalism, tied to The Fundamentals. The perverse variety of revivalism that arose in the American South bares much resemblance to the new religion of the recovering fundamentalists. They kept the philosophical underpinnings, while dropping the symbolism. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Fundamentalism itself isn’t the boogie-man of the recovering fundamentalists. Southern revivalism had deep theological problems. At the root of them was a form of mysticism, continuationism, and ongoing divine revelation. God spoke directly to the leaders as manifested in numerical growth spurred by counterfeit manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Also aiding the growth was pragmatic methodology the results of which were used as evidence of God’s work. The standards set themselves up against cultural decay and the anti-intellectualism against the Northern, liberal elites provided a natural enemy, like Mormonism does with its persecution syndrome. None of what I’m describing, again, is independent, fundamental, or Baptist.

The three “recovering fundamentalists” do not get an audience based on dense exposition of scripture, but based on the shared bitterness and malice of the misfits of Southern revivalism. The Holy Spirit doesn’t manifest Himself this way either. Their niche group isn’t holy or spiritual. “Recovery” isn’t moving to something biblical, but shared experiences, another generation complaining about their teeth set on edge because their parents ate sour grapes (Ez 18, Jer 31). Their authority is eerily similar to Southern revivalism: audience size and anecdotes, like what would come in the illustrations of the revivalist preacher. It’s like a Goth girl laughing at everyone else because they’re all just following the crowd.

The movement from which the three former “fundamentalists” recovered isn’t independent, because the Southern revivalists were tightly banded together around Charismatic figures and large organizations, based upon cleverness and oratorial abilities. Part of their mystique was holding up the Bible and then preaching things that weren’t in it. They were spouting their own opinions and gave people the impression that their thoughts were received from a direct pipeline to God. There was vice-grip like control about the emphases of Southern revivalism, everyone taking from the same script or talking points, and if anyone left that script, he would or could be excluded from the group, and miss out as a headliner for a main conference roster or prominent mention in the newspaper or magazine.

As I have already written, the movement wasn’t fundamental either. Fundamentalism was preserving the old and Southern revivalism is untethered from historical Christianity. It is akin to all the various heresies that have risen since the first century, actually emulating some of the ones that have come on the scene. At the root, it isn’t even Christianity. It doesn’t represent the Jesus of the Bible, but for some of the same reasons that a perverse evangelicalism emerging from Southern revivalism doesn’t represent Him either.

The movement isn’t Baptist, because Baptists believe in biblical repentance and have the Bible as their authority — for doctrine, for practice, and for worship. Practice includes methodology. Baptists regulate their practice by scripture, not by non-scripture.

The Southern revivalists had standards, ones actually closer to the Bible than the recovering fundamentalists. They are not examining their standards based upon the Bible and the practice of biblical Christianity through history, but based upon a reflex rejection of the old standards. They deem their new standards superior because they are different than Southern revivalism. Mussolini may have got the trains to run on time, and throwing out fascism doesn’t mean slower trains.

Recovering fundamentalists emphasize standards as much as who they criticize. They are left-wing legalists, who require wokeness, more egalitarian marriages, and worldliness. The pragmatism is a left-wing pragmatism still using fleshly means to gather the crowd. It is a new symbolism that is equally untethered from scripture.

Post-reformation church leaders said, semper reformada, always reforming. I’m not attempting to validate reformers, just to say that mid-twentieth century fundamentalists saw a need of semper reformada, perhaps semper fundamentalista The fundamentals of early twentieth century could not meet the downward trajectory of biblical sanctification. True fundamentalists and non-fundamentalist true churches reacted with repulsion to cultural degradation that they saw entering the church. Their militancy on cultural issues mirrored the early fundamentalist movement. This should not be confused with Southern revivalism even though the latter took the same tact, much like Jehovah’s Witnesses go door-to-door. The liberalism that started with doctrine moved to unravel holy living, and true Christians rose up against corrupted goodness and distorted beauty.

Hollywood isn’t a friend of biblical Christianity. The movie theater that Ellis talks about is a danger. It is a pollution of idolatry that the church in Acts 15 prohibited. The explosion of homosexuality and transgenderism didn’t start in a vacuum. The symbols of God-designed roles were abandoned to conform to the world system. Professing Christians who join them do wrong but also ignore the ramifications. Ellis chooses to engage important issues with sound bytes in favor with lasciviousness. Satan and the world system do not attack only the transcendentals of truth and goodness, but also beauty, and the avenue of an attack on absolute beauty does more to distort a right imagination of God than a distorted doctrinal statement.

Southern revivalists popularized a false gospel accompanied by unbiblical methods. That isn’t the interest of the recovering fundamentalists, because both the former and the latter depend on pragmatism. New “converts” of Southern revivalism might never indicate conversion. Neither will the evangelicalism of the recovering fundamentalists. This is an identical perversion of the grace of God. Southern revivalists mark sanctification by keeping the rules, but left winged legalists, like the Pharisees, reduce the law to the rules they can keep.

Ellis and his recovering fundamentalists do damage to the belief, practice, and preservation of the truth, goodness, and beauty. They don’t even recover from their earlier error. They just change the label. Do not be fooled by them. Do not join them. Their god is their belly, their glory is their shame, and they mind earthly things.

Lack of Application of Scripture to Cultural Issues and Ecclesiastical Separation Now Haunting Conservative Evangelicals Like MacArthur

June 22, 2020 / 4 Comments on Lack of Application of Scripture to Cultural Issues and Ecclesiastical Separation Now Haunting Conservative Evangelicals Like MacArthur

Scripture exhaustively and scrupulously furnishes and profits unto every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). For scripture to do this, it must be applied. The Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not smoke crack pipes.” The Bible does make that point, but it must be applied to do so. Scripture applies to cultural issues. God wants His Word applied to cultural issues. To obey God’s Word, the Bible must be applied to cultural issues. When one disobeys God on cultural issues, he is sinning against God.Not applying God’s Word to cultural issues resulted in bigger evangelical churches, including the conservative ones. They didn’t apply the Word of God to many different cultural issues. I’ve read what they have said through the years and confronted them directly on those. These issues, like many through the years, bleed over into many other doctrinal and practical issues of God’s Word. You can see this in scripture too.In 1 Corinthians 6:18 and then 1 Corinthians 10:14, the Apostle Paul made two related commands: “Flee fornication” and “flee from idolatry.” In other places in scripture, God commands, “abstain from fornication” (1 Thess 4:13) and “ye shall make you no idols” (Lev 26:1). The first two commands are beyond the second two. How does someone obey the first two commands, which are more than merely not fornicating and not making idols?Is “flee” to sprint away in the other direction? Does that obey the command? Does a believer obey the command to flee by running really fast and hard a different direction? It might seem like I’m insulting your intelligence, but these commands must be applied in order to be obeyed. In 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul wrote to Timothy, “Flee youthful lusts.” Same thing. In 1 Timothy 6:11, Paul commands, “Flee these things,” things referring to “many foolish and hurtful lusts,” which are related to money. These “flee” commands are some of many similar type commands that require application to obey.One is not adding to scripture or going “above that which is written” when applying these commands. It isn’t adding to scripture like a Pharisee. These types of evangelical, including conservative evangelical, attacks are red herrings. They make way for not applying scripture, especially on cultural issues.In the great meeting of the Antioch and Jerusalem churches in Acts 15, James instructed the Gentile believers in the combination Jew and Gentile churches to “abstain from pollutions of idols.” What is the obedience to that instruction? How do idols pollute? How does one insure he is not being polluted by an idol? This is the first thing James said directed toward the Gentiles in his speech. The meaning of “pollutions” could be “contaminations.” This goes further than just abstaining from idol worship, but relates to association, something Paul addresses then in 1 Corinthians 10.Evangelicals and conservative evangelicals, including John MacArthur and Phil Johnson, have called fundamentalists and separatist believers, “legalists,” because of their application of the above types of commands in scripture that relate to social or cultural issues. These issues do not reside in a vacuum. They affect gospel oriented issues, even as they did in the Gentile cities, where Paul ministered. I’m pointing out these two men, because now they and others, but especially them are being attacked because of their stands against evangelical compromise on cultural issues. They are being attacked like they themselves attacked others in many different instances. They accommodated the worldliness that now haunts all of evangelicalism. They still don’t separate over it. I welcome them outside the camp, bearing the reproach, that they themselves have given out.In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that the root identity of the believer, the citizen of His kingdom, is light and salt (Matthew 5:13-16). Being those two meant not abrogating the Word of God (Matthew 5:17-20). These are presented as salvation issues. Someone leaves darkness to light. He leaves the world system to the kingdom of God.I see pollutions or contaminations of all sorts of kinds in conservative evangelicalism too. They have not broken with worldly “worship,” dress, and entertainment or amusement. They see these as liberty issues. Onc cannot flee from youthful lust and worldly lust and “make not provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14) and accept these activities. Peter refused to eat with Gentiles in Antioch in the presence of Jerusalem Judaizers and Paul withstood him to his face for that. No scripture prohibited not eating with Gentiles — that was another application of scripture by Paul.Is the kingdom of Jesus Christ going to have the worldly and sensual worship of conservative evangelicalism? Will it have the immodest swimming activities with bare legs and plunging necklines? Will the inhabitants of the kingdom of the Lord listen to rock music and hip hop? Will the women and the men dress in androgynous fashion in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, or will there be a return to the distinct male and female garment?Phil Johnson has sad that strict application of scripture lead to the progressive evangelicalism we see today. They were pendulum swinging away from the legalism, caused by fundamentalists. No. The lack of consistent application of scripture leads to further capitulation. Evangelicals continued to associate. They didn’t flee. They kept making provision. Even without actual idolatry, it leads to pollution, contamination. The contamination results in the gospel distortion now rampant in evangelicalism.I don’t think the conservative evangelicals will separate. They won’t start applying scripture like they should have before, like true believers have through the history of Christianity. They will bewail the fall of evangelicalism loudly, as if they had nothing to do with it. Their compromise helped cause it.

WHAT IS TRUTH

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INDEX FOR WHAT IS TRUTH

Is “If Something Is True” the Only Criteria for Using Hillsong and Bethel Music? Critique of a John MacArthur Answer

Protests and Preaching / Prayer Unequal in California: You Can’t Go to Church, But You Can Violate the Law in Leftist Protests

The Combinations of Work at the Start of a Church

Why Does the Church Sing When It Is Assembled? Part Two

Why Does the Church Sing When It Is Assembled?

The Simplicity of God

COVID-19 and Churches Subject to the Higher Powers of Romans 13

Another Quixotic Whiff for Mark Ward on the Bible and Its Preservation

The Myth of the Recovering Fundamentalist

Lack of Application of Scripture to Cultural Issues and Ecclesiastical Separation Now Haunting Conservative Evangelicals Like MacArthur

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