Omissions From the Gospel, Important to Consider: Follow-Up

It looks like two different gospels (or more), what some might justify is two different versions or editions of the gospel, is mostly fine with independent Baptists and fundamentalists.  I see most as really picky about the Bible version, pant/skirt, and music issue, but fairly come-what-may, kesara sara about the gospel, at the same time talking like the gospel is of importance.  I don't think most care about the gospel that much.  I think they care about "being saved," but not about what the gospel actually is.

Down in Arizona, a meeting is called Gospel Proclaimed, with both Sexton and Doran, go figure. Somebody should say what's going on with that.  And I'm just using that as an example -- there's far more of this strangeness all over.

Some of the response that I at least got, and I'm glad to get a response, brought some other thoughts that I had heard before.  Not necessarily in this order, but I'm sure that the secular worldview has influenced Christians in a big way today, namely the idea that theological truth is subjective, not like objective science, gravity and blood circulation.  That ship already sailed on beauty and then "cultural issues," which are related.  However, should we wonder about how that two gospels (or more) could be tolerated as both acceptable?  These folks don't take their own doctrine too seriously.  Broad parameters exist.  Is the gospel being diminished to some slight level above paper or plastic?  You say tomaetoe and I say tomahtoe.

Your coalition will shrink if you start getting too picky on stuff like the gospel.  Do we really want to split things, whatever things are, right down the middle?  Perhaps it's all being done in a low-level way behind closed doors with the two different gospels unifying out front.  If you're wanting to give them a chance, give them a call or go visit them.  "Hey, if I give him a platform, he might appreciate me more, and listen" -- a sort of dollar diplomacy, hearkening back to President Taft.

Some try to turn this into a semantical thing.  We're saying the same thing, just using different words. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.  Boink.  Or a testimony thing.  Like when I was a kid, I didn't receive Jesus as Lord, and like are you saying that I wasn't like saved?  Didn't think so.

I read this comment at SharperIron about part one of this now mini-series:

I feel like the purpose of this article is strangely divisive. I have no problem theologically with people saying Christ is their Savior or even relating to Him primarily that way. I don't see it as a disconnect from Christ being one's Lord.

"Strangely divisive."  You've got two different gospels, but they don't have to be thought as two? That's strangely divisive?   Is this acceptable theological or biblical precision?   Someone doesn't understand what's going on, and needs correction, if he thinks this issue is just about how we "primarily relate to Jesus."  These are two positions.  What's strange is accepting two different as the same or deconstructing the issue so that both can be the same.  "The anti-federalists were actually federalists and the two groups just related to the Constitution in a different way."  This is the postmodern loosey-gooseyness with the truth, folks, and it slides right by anymore.  Eternal souls are stake, but someone doesn't want to hurt someone else's feelings.

I would relate the unwillingness to divide here to the threat to the size of the coalition.  Folks are unwilling to divide based on the gospel.  Why?  Does it matter?  Does anything that we believe really matter, or it all just a matter of personal taste anymore?

Omissions From the Gospel, Important to Consider

I'm taking a short break from my series assessing independent Baptists, but this is still related to part four.  I wish more interest would spread about the subject of that part in the series.

Men are justified by faith in Jesus Christ.  Men must believe in Jesus Christ to be saved.  This is different than merely receiving Him as Savior.  A lot of people are interested in being saved.  A lot of people agree that Jesus is the way of salvation.  A lot of people then are glad to ask Jesus to save them and receive Him as their Savior.  Does that mean they're saved?  I wouldn't be convinced that they are.  They could be, but it is troubling in its absence of more important and necessary truth about Jesus.

I've taught through all four gospels very slowly at least once now and I'm working through them again.  I've taught the life of Christ as a class several times.  Jesus will save.  He's the Savior, but the thrust of His saving message wasn't about Him as Savior, but Him as King, as Lord, as God, as the Son of God, as the promised Messiah.

When you read through John, you recognize that John is mainly a series of signs that Jesus is the Messiah, so people would believe in Him.  They are saved, not by believing He will save.  Sure, you have to believe He will save, or why believe in Him?  But you are really believing in  and receiving Him as Who He is. He's God, He's Lord, He's Savior.  You are not receiving Him if you detach those things from Him.  You believe that He is the King promised in the Old Testament, the one who fulfills the Davidic covenant.

The biggest reason why people won't believe in Jesus isn't because they don't want to be saved. Most people want to be saved, once they recognize they need to be saved.  What they don't like is having someone else in charge of their lives, so they don't like believing in Jesus, which is the only way how they can be saved.  You don't know who Jesus is if you don't understand that believing in Him means you're ceding control of yourself over to Him.  If you really do believe in Him, you believe He is King, which means He is in charge of you.  If you believe that, then you want that.  You will leave that part out either because you aren't saved, you are ignorant, you are an evil pragmatist, or all three of those.

Not doing what Jesus (God) wants is sin.  Salvation is saving you from sin.  He doesn't save you to continue not doing what He wants.  That's not being saved from sin.  It's not as though you can reject that part or even not agree with it, and be saved, only to acquiesce to what He wants sometime down the road.  No, you're giving in right away.

I recognize that churches in their "evangelism" or salvation plan mostly don't include what I'm writing above.  They include the Savior part and then hope that they'll persuade the candidate to obey at a later date.  In their system, someone can remain a rebel and still be saved.

Man became lost because He didn't do what God said.  That was sin.  He doesn't go from lost to saved without a recognition that he was wrong to be doing what He wanted instead of what God wanted and the acknowledgement and acquiescence that now He would be doing what God wanted.  Before he was saved, he was doing what he wanted, but believing in Jesus (God) is believing that Jesus is in charge now.  If someone doesn't think that Jesus is in charge, He doesn't believe in Him.

Everything I'm saying here is very simple.  One might even call it easy.  If it's so easy, why is this left out in people's preaching to the lost?  The reason is because this is the issue that people have with the gospel.  If it's left out, then they'll pray or make a profession or "get saved."  These folks want people to get saved, so they leave it out.  The problem is that by leaving it out, then it isn't the gospel anymore.  It isn't believing in Jesus.

If you believe what I'm writing here, then you know you've got to stand against those who don't believe this way.  There aren't two options on salvation.  "They're just not as clear as I'd like them to be" is just a cop out.  When you fellowship with them, you are contributing to their false gospel, to their negligence, to their horrific blinding of men to the truth.  You can't and you shouldn't be neutral.

Let me give you a 'for instance.' There are people on the FBFI board who believe what I'm writing and there are people on that board who do not believe it.  I'm not writing about the FBFI in particular because "I have it out" for the FBFI in some unique way.  I don't.  It just doesn't make any sense. Sure, there are other examples of coalitions besides them, who do the same.  Can they really stay in fellowship when they differ on this?  What is the basis for staying in cooperation and association? Is this nothing more than semantics?

An Honest Basic Assessment of Independent Baptists, pt. 5

Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4

The most important question someone has to answer in an assessment of himself, his family, or his church is whether the belief or practice is scriptural.  I've been offering my assessment of independent Baptists on those terms, not because I want folks to leave independent Baptist churches and join others.  I think other churches or denominations are by far worse off than independent Baptists.  I'm writing this because I would like independent Baptists to be better.  In one sense, they're what we've got left of New Testament churches.  I don't expect them to all go by the wayside, but independent Baptist churches need to self-evaluate and consider what they're doing.

As obvious as what I'm writing is, I wish there was more public support.  It could help -- not because I want it -- but because it would be good for others to step up.  That I haven't heard the support doesn't negate what I'm saying.  I'm confident it's right, but a lack of support reveals part of the problem with independent Baptists.   They should be able to admit the obvious, but they won't or don't, and all the potential reasons are part of what's wrong.

Some might not admit the obvious because it somehow means tacit approval to everything that I believe.  It isn't, because commenting on a blog post is not fellowship.  Withholding comments is not biblical separation.  Love rejoiceth in the truth.  I've understood for awhile that I can rejoice in the truth that someone says, even though I disagree with other statements he makes.  People should be encouraged in the truth, even when they might be wrong about something else.  Jesus said, "For he that is not against us is on our part" (Mark 9:40).  In Philippians 1:18, Paul writes, "What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." The same goes for me.  You might think I'm wrong somewhere else, but you don't think that the gospel isn't a problem among independent Baptists?  Maybe things are worse even than I thought, if that's the case.

My first honest basic assessment of independent Baptists is they are perverting the gospel.  That's the biggest problem as far as I'm concerned, and would also go a long ways toward solving the other problems, because of the consequences of a lack of conversion.   As the next biggest issue, I rate number two as....

SUSCEPTIBILITY TOWARD A SUCCESS SYNDROME

I recognize that when I say "success syndrome" that some will think of R. Kent Hughes's book Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, certainly not an independent Baptist, but making a good point with the book.  Everyone is seduced by success.  That doesn't mean everyone succumbs to the same degree, but it is a struggle for everyone.   How does this manifest itself among independent Baptists?

Disposition Toward Coalition

Early Christianity constituted separate churches drawn together by common belief and practice.  Each church functioned in independence with self-governance, contrary hierarchicalism, but Roman persecution tempted confederation in lieu of the threat of extinction.  Today we would not see survival within the parameters of success, but that necessity became the mother of ecumenicalism or safety through numbers.  The idea was churches having a better chance of survival against the Roman empire with a federation of churches.

True doctrine and practice are often the casualties of forming or maintaining a coalition.  Particular beliefs and practices are diminished for the sake of staying together.   Attention is given to what consolidates rather than what distinguishes.  Churches don't need coalition for success, even protection, but convince themselves out of faithlessness, fear, or pride.  They're better with the bigger unscriptural entity than the church, and the coalition usurps power dispensed only to the church.

The New Testament teaches fellowship between churches, but we don't see the institutional structures there now characteristic of most independent Baptists.  The biblical grid through which churches associate is the teaching of scripture, not the association for the sake of association.  Each church can fulfill every New Testament instruction, and, so sufficient, can function on its own, independent of all other churches.  Early in church history, the true church separated itself from the coalition that ended in Roman Catholicism.

A church should judge itself based upon scriptural criteria rather than the acceptance of the coalition. These short term necessities become long term monstrocities, exerting influence over all the churches very often in a political way.  A gigantic institutional structure can exert a lot of influence over an individual church and its leaders, bringing its weight of censure and castigation, to force its adherents back into the good favor of the group.

Independents lose their independency through voluntary association.  I'm not talking about fellowship with another church, but the deference to the group larger than the church, that hasn't been given the instruction or the promises of the church.  I'm calling this a success syndrome, because it is pragmatic at root, imagining advantages beyond God's plan.  It is akin to Israel's regular alliances with pagan nations, intermarriages with heathen princesses, and other endeavors superior to divine design.

The coalition comes in a few different forms for independent Baptists:  colleges, boards, camps, publishers, fellowships, conferences, and networks.  I'm not talking about people who aren't independent.  I'm talking about the coalitions of independents, which seems like an oxymoron.

Rather than looking to conserve independency, independents search for coalition, further ties and attachments.  We see new mergers and alignments on a fairly regular basis, forming around a new leader or cause.  With each, the idea is that 'we're better together than we are separate.'  'We can do better missions, publish more and better books, see more saved, and be more encouraged with a large group.'  'If we don't do this, we will be worse off, etc. etc.'  Each individual church begins to forfeit its distinctions, lost within the group.  Those distinctions often represent separate biblical teachings that obey and honor God.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, understood the human seduction of these arrangements, and other iterations like twitter have followed.  How many are your friends and followers?  You must be right, because you're so big.  Like with social networking, intolerance is not acceptable.  Thumbs up and "like" are the rules of the day.

I remember when Jerry Falwell, an independent Baptist, put together the Moral Majority back in the 1980s.  I also recall his promise of Liberty being a kind of Notre Dame of the Baptists.  Many independent Baptists feel like such small fries and are burdened by an inferiority complex, looking to these coalitions to give them confidence, instead of trusting the Lord.

The Top Men

I use the language, "top men," (here's another one) because it's what I read in the same genre among conservative evangelicals over evangelicalism.  They're now talking about the "top men," what they talk about the celebrities or rock stars in evangelicalism.  I don't think I've read the term anywhere else, even in pop culture, so the terminology has taken on a life of its own.   Most independent Baptists bow to some degree to the top men, and this has caused a lot of trouble.

Even without coalition, very often independents coalesce in the spirit of coalition around college and mission board presidents and big church pastors.  In the small pond that are the independent Baptists, the big fish are presidents and pastors of large churches.  This is again about a certain definition of success.

The Apostle Paul looked back over his life in 2 Timothy and said, “all they which are in Asia be turned away from me,” and then in the fourth chapter, “at my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.”  Being a top man meant having everyone turn away from Paul.  Success in scripture is not judged by prominence, like what Paul was chiding at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 1, when the fleshly Corinthians were saying, "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos."  This wasn't good.

In the recent past of both general branches of independent Baptists, I assess that the infatuation of big names has taken itself on as a chief characteristic of these churches.  The most admired men are presidents of parachurch organizations and pastors of the biggest churches.  This is so true that I have no trouble saying that everyone knows this among independent Baptists.  Everyone knows that presidents and pastors of big churches are the most important and prominent independent Baptists.  It isn't authors, because there are so few of those.  Presidents and pastors of large churches.

Is being a president or having a big church the best way to tell what kind of success you've been?  At the same time that independent Baptists would answer "no" to that question, they would still also say that they are treated like they're the biggest success.  And if independent Baptists know that, what is it that men will strive for?  Being a president and having a big church.

Is there any kind of biblical guarantee that someone will have a big church?  There isn't.  I say that, but I think over 50% of independent Baptists believe anyone can have a big church if he applies the right formula and dedicates himself to it.  And if not fulfilling the formula, it's having the necessary power to arrive at that criterion of success.  Men with the big numbers have spiritual power over and above others.  Many men believe this.  They even think the New Testament guarantees it.

Both segments of independent Baptists, that I mentioned in the first few posts of this series, give the top spots to the top men.  If you can't see a church become big, then you can go for the corollary track of trying to work your way up to the top spot of a big church.  You inherit the big church and become a top man vicariously.

The Consequences of Coalitions and Top Men

I don't know of a large church that hasn't aborted some biblical belief or practice in order to get big.  I know that alone could set off a huge discussion, asking me what I'm talking about and which churches.  It is my honest basic assessment.  I wouldn't have always said it, but it is how I see it now. I do think that it is true, that if one applies a certain formula, he can have a big church, but the formula requires some compromise of biblical truth.  The same forfeiture of biblical teaching or obedience continues then to keep the people attained with the faulty means.  And then building a coalition requires toleration of wrong doctrine and practice.

It is true too that some small churches are small because they are disobedient.  You won't see people saved (find the elect?) if you don't evangelize.  Churches that won't evangelize could stay small. Evangelism isn't the key to getting big, necessarily, but churches might be small because they won't evangelize.  I think this paragraph needs to be said in light of what I'm saying about large churches.

When truth is prominent, the casualties are coalition and top men.  When coalition and top men are prominent, the casualty is truth.  My honest basic assessment is that most independent Baptists now prefer coalitions and top men to truth.  Both of these are due to a success syndrome.  Forsaking coalitions and top men requires humility.  Let us humble ourselves.

Hannah W. Smith's Higher Life Corruption of Conversion: part 15 of 21 in Hannah W. Smith: Keswick Founder, Higher Life Preacher, Quaker Quietist and Universalist Heretic

This entire 21-part study appears on the FaithSaves.net website in a study entitled “Hannah Whitall Smith: Higher Life Writer, Speaker on Sanctification, Developer of the Keswick Theology, Quaker Quietist and Universalist Heretic.” Click here to read the entire study.

Search for:

“In addition to rejecting the core Biblical doctrine of justification, Mrs. Smith was very confused on the instrumental means for the receipt of the gospel.”

to read the section that was in the blog post below.

An Honest Basic Assessment of Independent Baptists, pt. 4

The labels or designations for churches could be reduced to something like "the church," and that would exclude almost no one.  "The Church of Christ" denomination makes a big deal about the name, as if not having the right name alone disqualifies a church.  If you know Baptist history, you know that "Baptist" isn't a name that New Testament churches gave themselves.  They were most differentiated by their separatism from the state church and their immersion of believers, distinct from the sprinkling of infants.  Roman Catholicism and Protestants both saw these independents as different and labeled them based upon what distinguished them.  All of these Bible believing and practicing churches would have been independent and Baptist in that sense especially.

Independent Baptist churches decided to organize into associations and fellowships and conventions. Many stayed independent of these groups, but then many others later separated to independence once again for the sake of purity.  However, every church, as we read in scripture, must take responsibility for its own purity through discipline and separation, because of the world, the flesh, and the devil, prone to move away from the straight belief and practice of the truth.

In this series, I offer an honest basic assessment of how independent Baptists have strayed the most. In the last post, I started the first one, that is, the....

PERVERSION OF THE GOSPEL

By Preaching a False Gospel

I believe most independent Baptist churches now preach a false gospel, and when I say most, I mean over 50%.  Almost all of these are the revivalist churches, which I believe outnumber all other independent Baptist churches, and these pervert the gospel mainly in their false teaching and belief about repentance.  To do this, they have twisted numbers of salvation passages, turning those biblical texts that teach the gospel into something post-salvation, Christian living, or practical sanctification.

Some of these churches say repentance is post-justification (even though you'll rarely hear them use the word "justification" -- they think it is after salvation).  Repentance to them is a doctrine for believers.   To them, believers repent, people already saved, not unbelievers.  They see repentance as a post-salvation work for believers.

Others misdefine repentance, essentially dumb it down, so that it isn't even repentance any more.  The life of the "repentant one" won't necessarily change, because it is an intellectual repentance, merely a change of mind.  It really is a game its adherents play.   Most of these say that an unbeliever repents of his unbelief.  He wasn't believing before, but now he is believing, so he has repented of unbelief -- that is repentance.

I've also heard the following.  A person who repents is willing to change, so those with this view say the will is involved -- yes, the will is involved.  He wants to change, but he won't necessarily change, so if he doesn't change, he still repented, because he wanted to change.  The point here, however, is that someone who wants to change, the one who believes and repents, will change.  If he doesn't change, then he didn't want to change, so he didn't repent.  This post and series is not to lay out all the doctrine and the answers to every one of problems -- I'm just reporting, folks.

All of the above are about a perversion of repentance, but that is one side of the equation.  Those wrong about repentance are wrong on the other side of the equation too.  They minimize Who Jesus is.  They believe He is Savior.  They believe that He is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, to a certain extent.  I think they diminish Deity of Christ with their exclusion of the Lordship of Christ.  You can't stay in rebellion against Jesus and actually believe in Him.  I'm saying they don't believe in Him either, minus His reign.  Jesus said, "Repent for the kingdom is at hand," and the kingdom was at hand, because the King, Jesus was there.  The above leave that out to various degrees.

How did the above happen?  The purpose again of this post and series isn't about how or why so much, but I will give a small summary of my assessment here.  Quite a few factors came together into a poisonous elixir.   Some relate to the distortion of Keswick Theology, Finney, Moody, Torrey, Scofield, Scofield's Reference Bible, early ecumenical evangelism, Dallas Theological Seminary, then Rice, the Sword of the Lord, and then Hyles.  These influences spread to independent Baptists through their colleges and conferences.   An undermining theological problem mixed with bad church growth methodology.   They lowered the bar of salvation until it wasn't salvation.  More got "saved," but they were receiving the placebo.  The distortion multiplied and continues to this day with numerous false teachers.

Of course, out of all the above has come very emotional altar calls and manipulation and then other very strange perversions, like 1-2-3 pray with me, easy prayerism, and "soul winning" where the winners come back with 50 to 100 saved.  After that, whole strategies were developed to get them into the tank.  Evangelicals have had their own offshoot of this and I see them all as dovetailing in all sorts of corruption in evangelicalism and fundamentalism.

By Not Separating from a False Gospel

Some have been in hell for decades now, who prayed prayers led by the above "evangelists."  We can't say bad enough things about all of it, and yet many put up with it for years and still do.  I believe that the people who don't say anything about these people, who allow it by their associations and accommodation, help spread it.

Before I delve into the lack of separation, you should know that I'm not saying the lack of separation equals preaching the false gospel.  This is not a moral equivalency there.  I'm explaining why the perversion of the gospel abounds among independent Baptists.  Neither should you conclude that independent Baptists are worse than evangelicals on this.  This is all over in evangelicalism and fundamentalism, but I'm narrowing it out of love to independent Baptists, and I am an independent Baptist.

I went to Maranatha for college and grad school, and I put Maranatha on the BJU side, the non-revivalist side of independent Baptists.  I would think they're happy with that.  However, when I was there for many years, because my family moved to Watertown, Wisconsin when I was 12 years old, Maranatha brought in Jack Hyles every year.  He preached something different than what I thought was right, but it was very confusing, because they first had John R. Rice and then Jack Hyles every year.  Many Maranatha grads went the Hyles route.  Bob Jones University had Hyles in too.  The present president of BJU, Steve Pettit, served at a Hyles church for awhile and early in evangelism, he encouraged a pastor I know very well to be like that, to take on those characteristics.

Both Bob Jones and Maranatha, and most fundamental Baptists, used Neighborhood Bible Time, that taught a false gospel.  I'm not saying that there weren't some saved under the influence of Charles Homscher and NBT, but many preachers learned their craft through the manipulation of that program.  They took on the same characteristics in their churches.  Many BJU and Maranatha pastors went to pastor's school in Hammond, Indiana.  This was like a pilgrimage to Mecca.  I can tell you that I never heard any sermon repudiating the doctrine of Jack Hyles at Maranatha.  Kids loved him.  None, the entire time I was there said anything officially against him.  That includes men like Larry Oats.

I remember attending the Wisconsin State Youth Conclave and then working in it, and we had Jack Hyles.  I remember standing at the front when kids were streaming forward, and because I didn't move up fast enough to meet them as they walked to the front, Hyles yelled at me to step forward as part of the invitation philosophy.  It was all part of his strategy, that was laid out in one of his manuals.

There is a lot of confusion out there, because you've got this same doctrine spread all over the place.  I mentioned in the last post the big independent Baptist meeting in Arizona.  One of the speakers is Clarence Sexton.  If you look at Clarence Sexton's page at the Crown College website, you don't see repudiation of all these shenanigans, but exaltation of them, including the Curtis Hutson center for local church ministry, who wrote the book against repentance for salvation.   Bob Jones University just had Sexton.  What is the dialogue with him all about?

At Clarence Sexton's Baptist Friends conference, he had Jack Schaap, Jack Trieber, and then president of the FBFI, John Vaughn. There has for a long time been an acceptance of all of this among both sides of independent Baptists, in that men don't separate over it.  And this is with separation being a common emphasis among independent Baptists.  Separation, separation, separation, and then no separation over a false gospel?  Is the Bible the basis for this separation teaching, or is it independent Baptist politics?

You see strange partnerships everywhere and this adds to more confusion.  John Goetsch is at West Coast and at Camp Joy.  Do the churches that attend that camp think that the West Coast gospel is their gospel?  That is very strange to me.  As an aside, does the Camp Joy music camp like the West Coast music?  Why is that ignored?  Isn't that false worship?  Does worship relate to the gospel?  Of course it does (John 4:23-24; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18).

I would be remiss if I didn't mention unaffiliateds.  There is an unaffiliated college, at least I think it claims to be unaffiliated, Master's Baptist College and Fargo Baptist Church (look under North Dakota), and yet this church and school bring in for its main conference speaker for its college days this year in September -- this is a big deal -- R. B. Ouellette and David Gibbs.  These are Hyles people.   Also, if you look at their promotional materials, they are full of Hyles supporters.  These men never repudiated Hyles's message.  They were right with him.  If you listen to Ouellette preach, he sounds just like Jack Hyles.  I've written about Ouellette and his views on repentance here before (here and then here).  If you treat this like it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter.

Look at Old Testament Israel.  Israel became what it allowed.  Israel didn't start believing wrong. First, they allowed wrong teaching and practice.  Then they did it.  Then it was who they were. Finally, they persecuted the true prophets.  I don't want to have anything to do with someone who doesn't preach a true gospel.

Methods That Obviously Distort the Gospel

Some say they teach repentance, but they bring in one to two thousand on the bus every week.  By the time these kids get to 8th grade, most of them dropped out, but they all made professions of faith, and were all "saved."  They were lured in with gimmicks, made professions, were even baptized, but they completely turn away from the Lord, and are still out there professing to be saved.  They think what they did at those churches was enough for them.  Even if these churches say they are right on repentance, they can't be.  They're preaching something wrong.  They're practicing wrong.  I could go more in depth about this and tell you how they're wrong in the doctrine, but they are.

I don't think someone should treat churches that use the above methods like they are preaching a true gospel to these kids.  They should treat them like they are distorting the gospel.  By ignoring it, the gospel keeps getting perverted.  They should lose fellowship for what they are doing.  It not only is ruining those children and the workers, who think that is the work of the Lord, but it then spreads everywhere else as a method, because people won't say it's wrong.  They treat it like it is a secondary issue, not worth separating over, when it is a gospel issue.

Part of why I am writing this is to teach.  Another is to warn.  I also want to make it clear where I stand.  I am not with the people who teach and preach a false gospel.  I wish you would join me.  I'm afraid that today people do not care.  I am barely scratching the surface above.  I could say much more and it is already very long for a blog post.  There are men on the FBFI boards that do exactly what I've written about here, so this is mixed in all over the place.

I stop at independent Baptist churches now and then on vacation and it's easy to see that they are proud of their Bible version and their dress standards, but they preach a horrible gospel.   On a few occasions, the best I could do was attend an evangelical church, non-denominational, instead of the independent Baptist church, for many reasons, but because at least the evangelical church preached a true gospel.  I'm not in fellowship with something like that, but it was the best I could do.  I try not to do this and am not planning to do it in the future, but it's happened.  I don't think you're justified for joining one of these other churches just because so many independent Baptists are like this.  But folks, the Mormons use the King James Version.   Independent Baptists, you've got to change on this! You've got to change! You've got to change!  Please change!

More to Come.

An Honest Basic Assessment of Independent Baptists, pt. 3

When men stand before God, some might argue, what difference will it make what name or identity they were given on earth?  People aren't going to be called independent Baptist in heaven, so it doesn't matter what they're called right now on earth.  For the most part, I've written, the independent Baptists do represent heaven on earth right now, and that's based on what heaven has told us in God's Word.  It's not their name, but what they represent, what the name means.  I explained that.

Being independent relates to separation from error.  Being Baptist relates to a position on the Bible.

With that being said, there are variations between independent Baptists.  There are reasons why not all independent Baptists agree with one another -- doctrinal and practical differences.  The more they agree, the more they get along.  It's normally like that with all human beings too.

Some people say differences are minor between independent Baptists and should be ignored.  That is a different subject than what I'm writing on, but anyone who has read me will know that I believe unity to be about the truth. Truth is the only right basis for unity.  We are not unifying by ignoring truth.  We might call it unity, but it isn't unity.  We should be most concerned about what God thinks, which is what God said in His Word.  To elevate the church or individual who ignores the most truth in order to get along with one another isn't better than unifying and separating over the truth. Someone who looks for unity or fellowship based upon the truth is the person who really does want unity.

It is wrong too to separate in an unscriptural way on a non-biblical issue.  A lot in the Bible tells us that we should not be creating unnecessary factions and attempting to cause disunity.  However, it is also wrong to unify with someone who will not believe or obey the truth.  When I say the latter, I mean the belief of and obedience to specific truths of scripture.  God gives liberty on non-scriptural issues, not scriptural ones, and that includes, of course, the application of Bible truths, not just their interpretation.

I am saying that independent Baptists are the most consistently aligned with the teaching and practice of the Bible.  At the same time, I believe there is more wrong than ever with independent Baptists. There is so much wrong that I understand men looking for a different name or designation of themselves.  They don't want to associate with what they think that independent Baptist has come to mean.

Some of the new, alternative names or titles, other than independent Baptist, don't do anything actually helpful from my perspective.   As an illustration, I was looking at the line-up of speakers at what has advertised itself as a big "independent Baptist" get-together in Arizona next year in March, and one was someone I had not heard of, so I looked him up online and found that he has lead a new church launch in Salt Lake City, and has chosen the name "Gospel Grace Church."  There isn't anything wrong with that name.  Just because it has that name, should we assume that it represents the gospel and grace?  I would hope so.  What it says to me though is broad and inclusive and indistinct, welcoming people of varied doctrinal and practical differences.  I see the naming as a business strategy, the production of label that will work better in marketing, which is crucial for church growth.  In other words, it distinguishes itself by its lack of distinction.  It doesn't want to be too distinct.  It's leader and his team are also going for that same feel with their website and presentation and music.

If the grace of God is really what changes us, we don't need new measures to change people.  The gospel will be good enough, but it seems that churches today often think that a kind of visual ecumenism will work better than distinction, at least at attracting an initial group of people who are turned off by distinctions.  Will people looking for a lack of distinction finally turn to something distinct, which is what God's grace actually does do and what the gospel does?  It won't based on a lie, so it is better to tell the truth up front about who we are and then let God's grace work.  People shouldn't be ashamed of being a Baptist for instance, which speaks of the genuine history of Christianity.  If we are trusting God's grace, we know that the name Baptist won't stop someone from denying himself, taking up His cross, to follow Christ.

My main point in writing this series hasn't been to discuss why to be an independent Baptist, but I thought that part of the assessment should be positive.  I am writing to assess what's wrong with independent Baptists mainly because I am positive about them.  I don't want them to dwindle.  Everything that is wrong is a departure from scripture and the first and most damaging to independent Baptists in my assessment is....

PERVERSION OF THE GOSPEL

As much as anything, independent Baptists should be distinguished by the gospel.  The gospel is what makes true churches.  People believe the gospel and become a church.  If people don't believe a true gospel, they won't become a church. Perversion of the gospel by independent Baptist churches results in less converts in the church.  Even though these churches have the name and the designation, they don't represent the Lord Jesus Christ, when they corrupt the gospel.  These churches are being destroyed by this.

Most of the revivalist churches have perverted the gospel and this has been a long time coming.  I don't think that most of these churches intended to twist and change the gospel.  However, under the influence of theological movements and pragmatic church growth philosophy, most of these churches now preach a perverted gospel.

Corruptions of the gospel have spread all over evangelicalism and fundamentalism.  This is not just relegated to independent Baptists.  Many evangelicals and fundamentalists, besides independent Baptist ones have been influenced by the same wrong teachers and teaching and church growth pragmatism.

I'll talk more about this in the next post.

Questions for Seventh Day Adventists

The following are some (slightly edited) questions I asked a Seventh-Day Adventist with whom I engaged in a significant amount of dialogue. They deal with some of the damnable heresies and grievous errors of the Adventist religion.  If, dear reader, you are a Seventh-Day Adventist, these are some of the issues that you really need to come to grips with.  If, dear reader, you are a Christian, not an Adventist, do you know enough about their religion to effectively preach the gospel to them?  There is a lot more to the SDA religion than going to church on Saturday.  Do you know what it is?  If, dear reader, you are in a position of church leadership, does your church have material to reach Seventh-Day Adventists in its tract and/or pamphlet rack?  Do your people know how to reach those precious souls trapped in this false religion?  If you cannot answer the questions above in the way God would want you to answer them, I would suggest an examination of the pamphlet Bible Truths for Seventh-Day Adventist Friends (churches that wish to use it as a pamphlet, and to personalize it with contact information about their Baptist congregation, can download the composition as a Microsoft Word document here) and the other resources on Adventism and sabbatarianism here.  A detailed exegetical analysis of the arguments for eternally morally binding Sabbath-keeping from Genesis 2:1-3 and the Decalogue is also found here.

1.) Is the Bible alone the Word of God, or is it 1% or less of what God has given to the church, with Ellen G. White's writings being 99%?  Should we be willing to lay down our lives for a single word of EGW's writings, the way we should be willing to lay them down for a single word of the Bible?  Nothing could be more fundamental than this.  If you don't have rock-solid explanations for the false prophecies made by EGW compiled here, and positive, rock-solid reasons, reasons better than the evidence for the alleged 1% of God's revelation that is the Bible, for believing EGWs writings are the inspired 99%, that would be an issue that is absolutely central for you.

2.) Does the true church worship the true God, or the devil?  I rejoice that, as a Baptist, I am part of a line of churches that has believed in the same God and gospel from the 1st century when Christ founded us until now.  Since the SDA denomination rejected the Trinity for decades and decades until the early portion of the 20th century, how can they can be the true church?  Scripture is clear that people who don't believe in the Deity of Christ (John 8:24, 58) or the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-6) are unsaved (cf. John 17:3).  How could the SDA denomination be the true church when its pioneers--including Ellen White, her husband, and her son, were anti-Trinitarians?  How could they be fearing God and keeping His commandments, supposedly as part of what Rev 14 says, when they didn't even have the right God?

3.) Who is Jesus? Is he Michael the Archangel, subordinate to the Father, with a sinful nature, a being capable of being destroyed for sinning, or is He the eternal, unchangeable, sinless God who became, in His one Person, two in nature, true sinless God and true sinless Man?

4.) What is justifying grace?  Is it something that requires one to stop working to receive it (Rom 4:5), or is it the ability to do works and become as perfect as Jesus supposedly did with a sinful nature and so pass an Investigative Judgment?

5.) Is Jesus the Mediator of all His people, so that nobody can come to the Father except through Him, or will many be saved without His mediation?

6.) Does honest exegesis applied to texts on being absent from the body and present with the Lord, and on the lake of fire and Gehenna, really support annihilationism? 

7.) Does the blood of Christ forever remove sin from those who have it applied to them at the moment of faith, or does Christ's blood defile the heavenly sanctuary, while sin is not removed until Satan finally takes it away?

8.) Does Christ perfect forever all of His people and keep them secure?  Is His prayer in John 17:24 for all of His people answered, or can they lose salvation if they don't continue to do enough works, so that His prayer in John 17 is not answered?

9.) Did God give us 1 John so that those who believe on the Son of God can know that they have eternal life, or can nobody know that he has eternal life?

10.) Is it appropriate for every believer to pray, "Forgive us our sins" daily, as in the model prayer, or are some now perfect so that they don't need to pray this anymore--indeed, must all who hope to be saved in the last generation pass beyond the model prayer?

11.) Should Christians oppose the murder of people from conception until natural death, or should they be part of religious organizations, like the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination, that support legal abortion and kill pre-born children in SDA hospitals?

12.) Based on New Testament teaching, did true churches worship on the first day of the week from the time of the Apostles onward because the Sabbath was fulfilled in Christ, or did every Christian worship on Saturday until an unnamed Pope in the 4th century made Sunday the Sabbath?

And, finally, but certainly not least important, must someone consciously and miraculously, through the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit opening blind eyes and creating a new heart, be renewed unto saving repentance and faith, a God-given trust in Christ and His cross-work alone, or is faith a man-originated mental assent to facts, and a miraculous new birth through the omnipotent efficacy of the Holy Spirit raising the spiritually dead sinner to life not necessary?

TDR

For more resources on Seventh-Day Adventism, click here.

An Honest Basic Assessment of Independent Baptists, pt. 2

The first post in what is a series of undetermined length laid out some of the setting for this analysis. Who are we talking about when we say, "independent Baptists"?  I did somewhat differentiate myself from independent Baptists by calling myself unaffiliated, but based on the most conservative definition, I'm still an independent Baptist.  I call myself one, because unaffiliated doesn't mean anything to most people.  With that being said, I think among the independent Baptists we find New Testament Christianity.

I wouldn't be a part of anything but an independent Baptist church.  The three words, independent and Baptist and church, represent crucial concepts for obedience to God's Word.  The true church is independent and, rightly understood, Baptist.  Since the church represents God in this age, then we are talking about what is most important on earth.

Even if independent Baptist churches are not in good shape overall, it still is the only place to be, if you want to be obedient to God.  True churches were and are independent.  They are autonomous, self-governing, and independent of a hierarchy, secular or religious.  Therefore, as well, they can obey biblical purity by keeping separated from false doctrine and practice.

By Baptist, I mean historic Baptist and characterized by New Testament distinctives, chiefly the Bible as sole rule.  I believe that only with Baptist churches is there divine authority.  The true church traces its history through the Baptists, so if you are not Baptist, your trajectory does not point to Jerusalem, but Rome.  The trend towards leaving out "Baptist" in a church name is a horrible one.

My honest basic assessment of independent Baptist churches is that for a multitude of various reasons there are very few that I would even recommend.  They are all that I would recommend, but even among them, there are few that I could.  You should look for an independent Baptist church, you should be in one, but most of them aren't very good.  Things are worse than ever, and when I say worse, I mean two or three times or more worse right now than at any time in my lifetime.  This also explains why things are so bad in the United States.

Is there any good news?  Even the good news is bad, because the good news is that things could be even worse.  We should all be happy that things aren't worse and they could easily be.  If I'm wrong in my assessment, I don't think it is in judging how bad things are, but that they're really worse than what I'm even saying.

The seeds for the major problems among independent Baptists go back a ways.  I'm going to talk about what I think they are and how we got into the trouble we're in.

More to Come