We Must Be Discerning!

This is a turning point, a very important turning point for the church. We must turn now back to the true Gospel or face God’s certain judgment.

What I am referring to specifically is the current church growth movements that are sweeping through churches and denominations like a wildfire. You may know them by one of the several names they go by; user-friendly, seeker-sensitive or purpose driven.

These philosophies are doing more to set back evangelism that anything has done in the last 50 years, and pastors, teachers and whole denominations, with no discernment whatsoever, are propagating it.

We have discussed this problem at length on our daily radio show, and will continue to do so. However, an excerpt from the book Ashamed of the Gospel by Dr. John MacArthur says it better than I ever could. This excerpt comes from chapter 5, page 85.

GOOD TECHNIQUE? NO, BAD THEOLOGY!
The philosophy that marries marketing technique with church growth theory is the result of bad theology. It assumes that if you package the gospel right, people will get saved. It is rooted in Arminianism, which makes the human will, not a sovereign God, the decisive factor in salvation. It speaks of conversion as a “decision for Christ.” Such language and such doctrine have begun to color modern ministry. The goal of market-driven ministry is an instantaneous human decision, rather than a radical transformation of the heart wrought by Almighty God through the Holy Spirit’s convicting work and the truth of His Word. An honest belief in the sovereignty of God in salvation would bring an end to a lot of the nonsense that is going on in the church.
Moreover, this whole ad-agency approach to the church corrupts Christianity and caters to the fleshly lusts that are woven into the very fabric of this world’s system (1 John 2:16). We have a society filled with people who want what they want when they want it. They are into their own lifestyle, recreation, and entertainment. They want comfort, happiness, and success. When churches appeal to those selfish desires, they only fuel fires that hinder true godliness.
The church has accommodated our culture by devising a brand of Christianity where taking up one’s cross is optional—or even unseemly. Indeed, many members of the church in the Western world suppose they can best serve God by being as non-confrontive to their world as possible.
Having absorbed the world’s values, Christianity in our society is now dying. Subtly but surely, worldliness and self-indulgence are eating away the heart of the church. The gospel usually proclaimed today is so convoluted that it offers believing in Christ as nothing more than a means to contentment and prosperity. The offense of the cross (cf Gal. 5:11) has been systematically removed so that the message might be made more acceptable to unbelievers. The church somehow got the idea it could declare peace with the enemies of God.
When on top of that punk-rockers, ventriloquists’ dummies, clowns, knife-throwers, professional wrestlers, weight-lifters, body-builders, comedians, dancers, jugglers, ringmasters, rap artists, actors, and show-business celebrities take the place of the preacher, the gospel message is dealt a catastrophic blow. “How shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom. 10:14).
I do believe we can be innovative and creative in how we present the gospel, but we have to be careful to harmonize our methods with the profound spiritual truth we are trying to convey. It is too easy to trivialize the sacred message. And we must make the message, not the medium, the heart of what we want to convey to the audience.
Don’t be quick to embrace the trends of the high-tech megachurches. And don’t sneer at conventional worship and preaching. We don’t need clever approaches to get people saved (1 Cor. 1:21). We simply need to get back to preaching the truth and planting the seed. If we’re faithful in that, the soil God has prepared will bear fruit.
But if the church in America does not get back to biblical Christianity, we will soon see the end of our influence for Christ. Everyone is astonished to see how rapidly the face of the modern world is changing. What so few Christians seem to realize is how frighteningly fast the church is coasting along the down-grade at the same time. We may be witnessing the last days of biblical evangelicalism as a significant force in our nation. It is not really far-fetched to imagine that twenty years hence, missionaries from Eastern Europe might be evangelizing America.
The reality of that possibility greatly alarms me. We who know and love the truth must be the prophetic voice of our God and affirm the holiness of His Name. We must demand that any effort in the name of our Lord manifest the integrity of His nature. He is “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Isa. 6:3) and must be so represented. Anything less is not worthy of our Lord’s majesty, awesomeness, and holiness.


We must take a hard stand for biblical truth and the sufficient of scripture, and lovingly call those steeped in this perversion of the truth to repentance.