In part one, I list the six positions with one corollary to the sixth position added.

Can or does any objective standard exist for judging church music?  Is the choice of musical style completely arbitrary?  To what degree can someone judge musical style based upon scripture?  The answer to these questions factor the most to differentiate the six positions on church music.  Almost everyone in evangelicalism and many in fundamentalism treat musical style like it doesn’t matter. To them, the worst thing you could do is judge it, the people who use it, or to be intolerant at all about it.

I want to talk about the development of the six positions, how they came about, why, and who I think takes them.  The music issue, as I call it, says a lot about how someone approaches any issue, significantly the so-called “cultural issues,” terminology that seems mainly to function as a pejorative, functioning to classify those issues as lesser ones or more dubious in consideration.

The culture is changing everywhere.  At her college, my middle daughter looks to her left and sees a female with optic pink hair and to the right one with a spike sticking out of her neck.  What’s weird to her is talking to and treating them as normal.  She treats them like they are made in God’s image, when they look like something different than that.  I attribute the change in culture to the inability of this generation to know and apply truth.  People are more than ever uncertain about the truth and even less certain about applying it.

Like many other issues, evangelicals succumbed to non-judgment of musical style a long time ago. It’s not that they didn’t ever judge it.  They stopped applying scripture to the music issue and since have developed more reasons for doing so.  Fundamentalists now in droves are following in their footsteps.

The judgment of musical style corresponds well to the judgment of other issues.  You have to rely on biblical principles or as some have explained, a second premise, to apply most of scripture.  You won’t obey scripture without applying a minor premise.  You can and must apply that premise to come to a biblical practice or conclusion.

Even though the Bible doesn’t command, “Don’t smoke crack pipes,” the same characters who can’t or won’t apply scripture to musical style will still apply it to smoking of crack pipes.  I have noticed new applications of scripture beginning, that I had not seen in fundamentalism, especially as they apply to social issues, even as they have discontinued applying the Bible in cultural ones.  It seems the choice of application has become completely arbitrary.

The only two consistent positions of the six, as I see them, are the first and the last.  Musical style is either immoral, number one, or moral, number six.  If some musical style is immoral, then offering it to God as worship is false worship, in essence offering God something immoral as if He would receive it.  He won’t, but saying that He will anyway, and without reason.

The people who take position number one know when something is wrong.  They know that Marilyn Monroe was wrong for singing Happy Birthday in a completely sensual manner to John F. Kennedy. They know that.  That know that is immoral.  The lyrics aren’t a problem.  The style is all that’s wrong with it.  However, they know that it is the only consistent position, so they take it.  Everyone knows there is “mood music” and within that general category, “sexy music,” that is not appropriate for worship of God, but if music is amoral, then they have to accept that too.  They shouldn’t, but if they don’t, then, again, they know that they have to start judging music, and that opens pandora’s box for them, thus reverting back to number one.

As I view it today, more churches practice number one than number six.  At one time, no one practiced number one, because everyone in the world, even the unsaved, knew that music was moral. Most of the list is pushing toward number one.  There are less of number six than ever and as time passes, I foresee more and more movement toward number one, even if people don’t settle on it as their position, because they know it isn’t true.

The big argument against number six is that you can’t prove it.  You can’t give evidence.  You can give evidence.  It’s like evidence for the existence of God.  You could say, depending on how you define evidence, that there is no evidence for God.  You haven’t seen Him, so He doesn’t exist.  He doesn’t do astronomical special signs that would indicate His existence, so He doesn’t exist.  For music, you can’t push a play button on the Bible that says what bad music is, so there isn’t evidence of what it is.

The same people who say there isn’t evidence for  permissible musical style by which someone can judge it, neither can say that there is evidence against string bikinis in scripture. It’s against the law to scream “fire” in a crowded building.  As easy as that is to understand, there is also evidence against optic colored hair dye and Nazi symbolism.  Perhaps there is evidence against women running around stark naked, but is there evidence against drawings of women or men naked?  I don’t have a verse. Can I judge that?  I’m saying, yes.

I said I would mention some examples of the various categories.  I listened to Mark Dever’s interview of Keith Getty, and Dever asked him about musical style.  Dever point blank asked Getty at about 48 minutes whether there was a style of music that couldn’t be used in church, and Getty said these words:

I don’t believe at all in the idea that one style is holier than another.

Getty went on to say that it should be whatever style will bring your 72 year old grandfather and his ten year old grandson together in singing a song, which does fit number two in my list.  He’s saying that is best.  He’s not saying that any musical style is wrong.  I noticed that Getty will lead the singing at MacArthur’s Shepherd’s Conference again this year.

I don’t think John MacArthur himself believes number one.  You can read that in his original commentary on Ephesians (5:19).  He says rock music is not acceptable for worship.  It is immoral in itself there, something that Getty contradicts and Dever doesn’t correct in the interview.  In the pretty recent Strange Fire conference, MacArthur said all of the following quotes:

The contemporary evangelical church has very little interest in theology and doctrine, so you’re going to have a tough sell. It’s about style. And style is the Trojan Horse that lets Charismatics in the church. Because once you let the music in, the movement follows. It all of a sudden becomes common. We sound like the Charismatics, sing like they do, have the same emotional feelings that they have. It’s a small step from doing the same music to buying into the movement. So the tough thing is you’re going back to a church that is thinking like that. It’s hard to make sound doctrine the issue when style is much more the interest of the leaders of the church.

Later he said:

I don’t think it has to do with what the teachers are saying. I think it’s the music. It’s like getting drunk so you don’t have to think about the issues of life. If you shut down the music, turn on the lights, and have someone get up there and try to sell that with just words, it’s not going to work. You’ve got to have some way to manipulate their minds.

He followed that with this:

I would go so far as to say that evangelical noncharismatic churches are using music that is unacceptable to draw people in. They’re using the music of the world to suck people in as if somehow people would get saved through the music. The two have no connection. This is so close to what’s in a normal evangelical environment that it’s a very small step to getting sucked in, because the style is the same.

Lastly, he said this:

I’m convinced that the contemporary style of charismatic music is the entry point for Charismatic theology into churches. If you buy the music, the theology follows. Because all of a sudden you’re listening to the same songs/artists, experiencing the same emotions. The church may be non-Charismatic, but all the style is exactly the same. That’s the entry point. Show me a church that has a strong doctrinal statement, and I’ll show you a church reluctant to embrace even the music. Show me a church that loves great hymns and theology put to music, I’ll show you a church reluctant to embrace the charismatic movement. And because the music doesn’t come in, the theology doesn’t either. That’s the seductive entry point.

MacArthur does know.  So even though Getty won’t judge musical style, what number is he?  He seems like number three. This allows for false worship, while saying there is musical style that is wrong.

I’ll return to this next week perhaps.

Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are all over the board on church music.  I’ve noticed at least six different positions from those who would not call themselves liberal.

Have you ever assessed the massive difference in quality of professing Christianity between you and either that of almost all of evangelicalism and even of much of fundamentalism and wondered how they could all be considered to be actual Christianity?  There is a gigantic qualitative dissimilarity between our church and every evangelical church in our area.  We do not allow much of what they do in our church.  Many today call these differences non-essential, that we actually agree with these evangelicals on what’s important, so that the variation between us doesn’t matter.  They would even say that we’re wrong for judging them, that we should just accept them, despite the differences.

One of the key arguments for accepting evangelicals and fundamentalists who differ is one that says churches or professing believers should separate only on gospel oriented teachings.  It is expressed by the notion that the gospel is the essential basis of unity among Christians, so that agreement on the gospel should be enough to bring professing Christians together, even if they differ on many other doctrines and practices.  I don’t agree with this position, but for the sake of argument, I want to say that it is true.  Again, I don’t think it is, but let’s say that it is.  Let’s make just the gospel the basis of fellowship between believers and churches, what you will hear me call minimization or reductionism.

Even without purposes of argumentation, I want to get along with everyone.  Everyone should desire to get along with everyone. God wants reconciliation with everyone. I want it.  I do want to get along with all the evangelicals and fundamentalists, let alone with everyone else in the world.  I so much want to get along with all of them, that for the purpose of argumentation, I’m going to consider the standard, not my own, of getting along based on only the gospel – only the gospel.  Nothing else.  Only the gospel.  I am going to try to get along with all of them on their terms.  Will that still work for me, for anyone?

With this standard, it would seem that, to start, everyone would need to agree on what required components of the gospel are.  That alone is going to begin to truncate the group, but I don’t even want to do that, so I’m again going to simplify by saying that the gospel is “to believe in Jesus Christ.”  For the sake of argument, what will unify evangelicals and fundamentalists with me and others is faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.  With that being the case, to get along I would need unity on what faith or belief is and then Who Jesus Christ is.

Many evangelicals and fundamentalists are messed up on what faith or belief is.  To believe, it has to be belief.  Belief isn’t belief when it isn’t belief.  It must rise to the level of belief to be belief.  Let’s say belief was a glancing thought about Jesus.  I’m being extreme there on purpose.  However, that’s short of saving faith, and, therefore, short of the gospel. I would have to divide on that shortfall of saving faith as part of this essential that the gospel is supposed to be.  What it does establish is that someone can fall short of saving faith in a gospel perverting manner.  There are other further and better iterations of faith than a “glancing thought about Jesus” that also fall short of being saving faith, that pervert the gospel.  I estimate that those alone separate our church and me from most of evangelicalism and fundamentalism today.

I can hear in my head the protestation of evangelicals and fundamentalists, who don’t either want to be questioned on whether their faith is legitimate or not.  I would like to talk about that more, but the point of this post is the second simple component of the gospel, and that is Who is Jesus Christ.  You will hear me say often that I could believe in Jesus Christ, but if he is a jar of peanut butter, then he isn’t Jesus Christ. If he isn’t Jesus Christ, then the person believing in him isn’t saved.  That also perverts the gospel.  That brings me back to my initial thought of this post, that is, the vast differences in the Christianity of evangelicalism from ours.

I am contending that a vast majority and then most of fundamentalism do not imagine a right or true Jesus.  I’m saying their Jesus isn’t Jesus.  They have formulated a Jesus in their imagination who conforms to what and who they want him to be.  Their Jesus wants rock and rap music for worship.  Ours doesn’t.  Can those be the same person?

I’ve been to the doors of many, many evangelicals, who come with tiny shorts or skin tight pants or a revealing blouse, cleavage showing, and if I ask them if they believe in Jesus, what do you think their answer is?  They say, yes. They say they believe in Jesus.  Their Jesus, their grace, their belief, and their God is very fine with all that.

Most of you know that a vast majority of evangelicalism and much of fundamentalism has already slid further than what I’m describing.  Their Jesus is fine with all this.  They believe in that Jesus, the one who is fine with all this. That’s the Jesus they believe in.  Is this a case of mistaken identity?  I’m saying it is.  I’m saying that don’t know Jesus, because their Jesus clashes with the scriptural one.  The one in their imagination is different than the Bible, and it is the One in the Bible Who must be believed in for them to be saved.

There is only one Jesus.  The one Jesus is the only one also to be believed in, so that a person could be saved.  When Jesus has been reduced in people’s minds to a goodymeister, someone akin to a boyfriend, a therapist, a buddy, or a thrill provider, he isn’t Jesus anymore. He’s been reduced to someone less than Jesus in the imagination, one who Satan would gladly have someone imagine, another Jesus, not the one of the Bible.

I understand how that people would be fine with a Jesus who conforms to want they want in their imagination.  I understand how that people would be fine with a Jesus who will conform to their desires and whims.  I understand how that people would be fine with a Jesus who accepts worship of their taste or feelings.  I understand how that a church could get bigger and better attendance from forming a Jesus in the imagination that looks like someone people see in the mirror.

In 2 Corinthians 11, changing Jesus into another Jesus is presented as a way that the gospel is perverted.  A major reason that a large majority of evangelical and most fundamentalist churches are different than ours is because they have a different gospel.  Their gospel is different in that they have an unbiblical Jesus formed in their imaginations.  Jesus is real and there is only one of Him, but the one we believe and worship is in our imagination.  If He is not the right one, then we are not saved.  The gospel has been corrupted in a salvific way.  It is a gospel issue that separates our church from theirs.

If we are only separating over the gospel, the wrong Jesus is enough to separate.  That alone separates our church from most churches. We are not going to agree that we are all worshiping the same Jesus, just because people say we are.  God knows that we aren’t.

You may think that you are bigger or more loving because you show more acceptation of varied imaginations of who Jesus is.  You may think that you are affording more people access to heaven by increasing the acceptable possible imaginations of Jesus.  In the end, when they profess that they knew Him, when they didn’t, they’ll find out too late that you weren’t helping them or anyone else.  They’ll know you actually hated them in the worst way possible.  You got a lot of credit for your toleration, while damning their souls.

I’ve found that people in general are far more picky about what people think of them than what they think about Jesus. They have a very high standard for people’s assessments of themselves. It’s not good enough for people to think whatever they want as it relates to what people are saying about themselves.  On Jesus, they are different.  They don’t care as much.  He can be a much larger range of possibilities and still be adequately him.  They are fine with him being more like they want him to be, while accepting only what they expect people to think of themselves.

If a false gospel damns men’s souls, which it does, we should at least separate over a false gospel.  I don’t think it’s enough to separate over, but I would agree that the gospel at least should divide.  If the gospel is what brings us together, then the Jesus at least needs to be the same Jesus.  If he isn’t, then we’re just playing games with this idea that the gospel is what brings us together.  I’m saying that almost all evangelicalism and most of fundamentalism is playing games.

God wants honor and worship and praise.  He wants faith.  He wants us to believe Him.  He wants us to depend on Him.  We do that by listening to what He says and doing it, and not adding to it.  We should also assume that as believers we have all the power in the universe to see that accomplished. God’s instructions in precept and principle are His enablements.

If you depend on a chair, it’s four legs, you don’t add anything to it.  For salvation, this means not adding works, depending on God alone to be saved. When it comes to scripture, it means not adding anything, depending on God’s Word for sanctification and service.

Depending on God is depending on His Word. Those are the same. Depending on God is not doing something your way, asking God to use it, and then depending on Him for what and how you want to do something.  That isn’t depending on Him.  That is depending on yourself.

There are several reasons that scripture gives us for depending on Him.

First, God is pleased only when you depend on Him.  Dependence on Him is part of believing in Him.  It is the trust part of faith and without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6), so you are not pleasing Him, when you are not depending on Him.

Second, closely related to the first one, when you don’t depend on Him, so that you are not believing in Him, you are disobeying Him.  He tells you to trust Him.  God is Trustworthy.  He is Dependable. You have disobeyed Him when you don’t trust in Him.

Third, when you don’t depend on Him, you are depending on yourself.  Your way, the what and the how, are not better than His.  It might look like it’s working, fooling you into thinking that it’s working, but you are deceived.  It might be working in the short term, but if it is not working both in the short term and the long term, then it is not working.  It will not work in the long term, when you are not depending on Him.  God knows the end from the beginning, and you don’t.  His way works out in the end, not just in the beginning.  You don’t know that.  He does.

Fourth, God gets the glory His way, both the what and the how.  This is the gist of 1 Corinthians 1-3.  Greeks trust in wisdom.  Jews trust in signs.  Paul says trust in God, because that’s what glorifies God.  The methods should be His — that’s how He is glorified.  This is the essence as well of what Peter was talking about in 1 Peter 4:10-11.  In the speaking gifts, it must be the oracles of God for God to be glorified, not your speech, your cleverness, your psychology, your whatever.

Fifth, depending on God is what actually works.  Man’s problem is a supernatural one.  God’s way is supernatural.  When I say it is supernatural, I don’t mean that it is mystical.  God saves through His means, the gospel.  God is worshiped according to His Word, not how we like it or what makes us feel good.  Worship is not a matter of taste.  People are saved through God’s means and God is worshiped in His way.  Everything should be regulated by what He says, because that is what will work.

We don’t even know what works, except that God tells us what works.  Some might say, God is working, and it isn’t even God working.  It is their work, and it will pass away in 30-50 years or even shorter, maybe longer, but it won’t last.  I’ve lived long enough now to see fads that work pass away for something else.  I’ve already seen three or four iterations of man’s way, and the latest is treated just like the first, and they are very much the same.

Let me give you an example.  When I was young, there was Jack Hyles.  Hyles’s stuff now doesn’t work, but it’s not like Hyles isn’t still around.  You had Hybels and then Warren and Paul Chappell, and now worse, that the former birthed.  You’ve got people who have slightly modified Hyles, but it is still Hyles.  Hyles was Finney.  All of these are new measures that relate to ensuring something happens through human effort, and then calling it the power of God.  They are the same means dressed up in a contemporary costume.

The way of God is old.  It’s historic.  It’s very basic.  You don’t understand how it worked, because it doesn’t make sense that it worked. You depend on God.  Depending on God isn’t depending on God to reveal to you a method that isn’t in the Bible, and then saying that it was depending on God, because God gave it to you.  If someone is praying for God to give them a better way, that isn’t depending on God.

Very often when something works in the short term, someone says he depended on God for it and God deserves the glory.  God isn’t glorified.  The man is glorified.  He may say God gave it to him, but it really is him that is the one getting the credit.  He has some special relationship with God, a higher, better one than the Bible even promises, which is why, you’re to know, that he got it from God.  Then it “works,” and this validates that it was from God.  Thirty years later it is blown to smithereens or apostate, and then it doesn’t matter anymore.  People don’t remember.  While it is happening though, people are deceived, and they think it is the power of God.  It isn’t.  It is him, the man, his method, adding to scripture.

The New York Times joined in the story of DNA proof the Canaanites survived despite God’s command to the destroy them in the Bible.  I saw the headline of the story last week at RCP, and my immediate thought was that God commanded their destruction.  God also commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Israel disobeyed God’s command, which was one reason for their apostasy.  It shows you how stupid the New York Times is, and others like it.

It’s sad and funny that the New York Times links in its article to a BibleHub online Bible of Deuteronomy 20:17, which the King James Version reads, “But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.”  God commanded Israel to destroy them, but in very ancient news, Israel didn’t obey.  Just because God commands something in the Bible doesn’t mean that everyone does what He says.  The Bible isn’t the story of a people who were completely obedient, but the story of sinners who, even though God gets it entirely right, themselves get it usually wrong.

The science part of the study appeared in the American Journal of Human Genetics.  It should be a great testimony to the authenticity of the biblical record, since it says that these people existed. Instead, many used it with great glee as a basis for the Bible not being true.  This included The Telegraph, The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Tech Times, Mother Nature Network, Cosmos, and many more.  They are saying in essence, “The Bible says they were destroyed, and they weren’t!” The Bible says that God told Israel to destroy them.  Israel didn’t.  As a result there was all sorts of Canaanite false worship in the land.

Joshua 17:12, Judges 1:27-28, 31, and 2:3 read (some underlining for emphasis):

Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. . . . Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out. . . . Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob. . . . Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.

Scripture itself later says the Canaanites were not destroyed from the face of the earth, which was the point contradicting the New York Times and all the other fake news.

I guess we can wait for a retraction.  You should be heartened though.  Those on the other side are wrong again and obviously so.  They are either totally duped or deceived or rank liars, but they are wrong.  This is just who they are, so don’t let them bother you.

Part One     Part Two    Part Three

James 1:13-17 reveals a lot about the nature of the true God.  I want to print the verses.

13  Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 16 Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

This section of James is packed with teaching, but it is a huge revelation about God, specifically two attributes unique to Him, His immutability and impassibility.  God’s immutability and impassibility are contrasted with man’s mutability and passion.  Man’s state is found in verses 13-15, separated by a metacomment in verse 16, and God’s state is seen in verses 17 and 18.  There are some very clear grammatical markers that manifest this.

In 13-15 man functions according to outside stimuli.  He is tempted and drawn away of his lust, his passions.  God on the other hand cannot be tempted, because with Him is no variableness and He begat by his own will, not anyone else’s.  Lust results in death.  God’s gift results in life.  Because God is not afffected to change, we look to Him for wisdom (James 1:5), not the wisdom of this world, which is earthly, sensual, and devilish (James 3:16-18).  When we are tried, we depend on Someone Who does not change, not on man, who does.

What we see today are men conforming God to themselves in trials.  Rather than looking to God, Who is not tempted with evil, they are tempted and they turn to God with a purpose to adapt Him to their own desires.  When it comes to worship, God stays the same, but they imagine a god more to their liking, who conforms to their desires.  Rather than conform to God, they conform to the spirit of this age.

God doesn’t change, but men’s standards change, their worship changes, and false doctrines and practices are tolerated to maintain their coalitions, organizations, or movements.  God has to be God. Every sin is some departure from the nature of the one and true God.

A doctrinal statement might be identical to a hundred years ago, but the God in the statement is a vastly different God in the imagination.  The God in the imagination is the God who men worship. We know this occurs, that is, men change God into what they want Him to be (Romans 1).  This is why two churches with a nearly identical doctrinal statement can be very, very different.  These differences do matter.  God is communicated by more than the words on a sheet of paper.  He is communicated by the medium of worship men use and by the life that the worshipers live.  The words take on a different and either perverted or insufficient meaning when God is conformed to men.

Immutability is that God doesn’t change.  Impassibility is a sub category of immutability in that God doesn’t function according to passion.  He directs all His behavior.  He doesn’t fly off the handle.  In part because of His impassibility, God is immutable.  Churches today have changed drastically in doctrine and practice.  Their worship has radically changed.  Worship has conformed to the passions of men and don’t represent the true God.  They bring God to the level of man’s lusts and profane Him.

I know a question, maybe the question, for those reading this series, are the people saved, really saved, who are so different than the God of historic Christianity.  Are they believing in the same God? I don’t know.  I wouldn’t want to be them.  Do they abide in the doctrine of Christ?  Do they have the same Jesus?  Just because they have the same Jesus on paper, it doesn’t mean that they have the same Jesus.  I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.  God has to be God.

part one     part two

God wants to be believed, but it has to be belief in the actual one and true God to be belief in God.

Genesis 15:6, “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

It is not an uncommon statement, “I believe in God,” but if the god the person believes in isn’t actually God, then he doesn’t believe in God.  There is only one God, Who isn’t a made-up one in a person’s mind.  It’s got to be Him, the actual, only God.  A way not to believe in God is to believe in another, more convenient god.

Perhaps you can relate to the following situation.  Two different people or two different groups both say they believe in God and even in the same God.  I’m talking about both believing in the God of Christianity.  Both worship the so-called same God, the one both say they believe in, and yet what they both call “worship” is exactly opposite of the other.  The same God could not approve of both. So do they both believe in the same God?

God doesn’t get to be who we want Him to be.  He is Who He is.  He doesn’t become what we want in our imaginations.  We should think rather that we get to be what He wants us to be.  With God there is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).   We’re the ones who conform to God, not He to us.  We get to conform to Him, if He allows us to.

People shape God to their imaginations with their worship.  They offer God what they want and the god of their imaginations accepts it.  It isn’t God.  They believe in him and he isn’t God.  He is the god of their imaginations, shaped by their offerings to him.  They give him what they want.  The children growing up in their churches also develop a wrong view of God.  It’s no wonder that He also tolerates many various manners of lust from His so-called worshipers.  This is how various forms of Christianity exist.  When you judge one not to be true or orthodox or right, its adherents might show you a doctrinal statement, but they still have a different god in their imaginations, who isn’t God.

Their god is the same god who allows for bikinis, short shorts, strapless dresses where the top comes right down to the top of their breasts, for their women.  Their god approves, applauds that.  He obviously isn’t a holy God. They are very casual about their god and their god is casual with them.  In their minds, this god saves them and saves them by his grace, because that’s what he does.  However, when they believe on this god, are they really believing in the true God?  I can’t wish them into heaven by agreeing that he is God.  I don’t think He is, because the God I worship and the one they do coudn’t be so different.  Somebody’s got to be wrong.  I know it’s them.

God has to be God for you to believe in Him.  You are not believing in Him when He is who you want him to be.  How far does He need to dip below Who He is for Him not to be him any more?  Is that worth it?  Only Christianity plays this game, it plays this game with God.  Tiddly-winks isn’t tackle football.  Madagascar isn’t the United States of America.  The god of their imaginations isn’t God.  He is a different god, more the god of their lust, and He doesn’t save.

Part One

“I believe in God,” you insist.  Sure, and the god to whom you refer both expects and allows you to live pretty close to how you want.  That’s the god you believe in.  Actual God doesn’t count that belief as believing in God, because it isn’t Him, actual Him, Whom you are believing in.

What I’m writing about, the Apostle Paul describes in Romans 1:25, 26, and 28, which together read:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. . . . 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.

People change the truth of God into a lie.  The idea of “the truth of God” in this context is “the truth about God.”  They reject the truth about God for a lie about God.  They call their god, God, but in fact they serve the creature.  Their god functions within their own parameters.

Verse 28 expands upon verse 25 by explaining that they “did not like to retain God in their knowledge.”  “Did not like to retain” is literally that “they approved not to have God in their knowledge.”  The second half of 25 is a play on words.  “Approved not” is ouk dokimazo and “reprobate” is adokimos, both the same root words.  Their minds trash God, and their minds become the judgment of God itself.  Men can’t think straight when the one and true God isn’t accepted in their thoughts.  Their minds become what their minds do.  Their minds trash God and their minds become trash.  The judgment is a built-in consequence.

The chief alternative god to actual God, that I see today in the world, is what I call the goodymeister.  He’s a kind of living vending machine.  He’s perfect for men walking after their own lusts, who don’t want a boss.  Knowing he is who men want as god, churches offer him as god to their people.  He does not form in their imagination mainly through a doctrinal statement, but by the style and substance of the preaching and the worship.  They give him, this goodymeister god, what they like, what they would want if they were him.  His adherents would gladly serve him, because he wants the same things they do.