Marks of the Church

• The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, Any man of the people of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his children to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that man, when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his family, and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in playing the harlot after Molech. (Leviticus 20:2-5)

(Tim) Last Sunday, about two hundred believers went to the Monroe County Courthouse on the Square to protest the slaughter of the unborn. This protest is held each year to memorialize the fifty million--that's 50,000,0000--babies that have been slaughtered under the protection of our Supreme Court's blood lust known as Roe v. Wade. That's sixteen thousand, eight hundred and twelve times the number of deaths caused by the nineteen terrorists on 9/11.

Here in Monroe County, six hundred and seventy-six infants were murdered by Planned Parenthood and its hired guns in 2005, the most recent year stats are available.

Show up at this protest and you'll witness the anemic witness to Jesus Christ that prevails the rest of the year in this community. Five or so from Evangelical Community Church (less than one percent); five or so from our evangelical megachurch, Sherwood Oaks (less than a quarter of a percent); thirty to fifty from the various Roman Catholic parishes (less than one percent); a smattering from each of a number of other churches; five or ten from the Reformed Presbyterian Church; the occasional vegan or atheist who agrees with Nat Hentoff that "For an atheist, life is all we have;" and the remainder from Church of the Good Shepherd.

No, I'm not bragging; I'm shaming. It's unconscionable that Christians are silent year in and year out as babies are slaughtered in our fair city. When I used to preach at Evangelical Community Church, if I mentioned abortion in the sermon the wife of one of our elders would stand up and parade out of the sanctuary...

God has ordained the Sacraments to divide men...

(Tim) From The Huffington Post, here's some commentary on the congregational applause that greeted Senator McCain's statement at the Rick Warren pow-wow, that life begins at conception:

These are church people. What they say and what they do often doesn't match.... As loudly as they may have applauded McCain's straight talk about abortion, a lot of women in that audience have had abortions. A lot of their mothers, their sisters and their daughters have too.

How do I know?

I know because evangelicals who've studied each other have shown again and again that evangelical behavior differs very little from that of the rest of the country.

The writer is correct to say the church is filled with women who have murdered their babies. Even if you don't believe the pollsters, do the simple math and you'll see that the over two-thirds of Americans who claim to be Christians have to account for the murder of millions of the babies murdered since 1973's Roe v. Wade. And although the writer doesn't mention it, the church is also filled with the men who fathered those children and demanded or acceded to their murder.

Acknowledging this, we need to keep some things in mind.

First, regardless of how they identify themselves spiritually or theologically here on earth (membership in the PCA, for instance), like unrepentant adulterers and thieves, murderers who refuse to confess their blood-guilt and ask for God's mercy will not be in heaven. As the Apostle Paul puts it so bluntly:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. (1Corinthians 6:9,10)

Second, as a minister of the Word and Sacrament, the essence of Pastor Warren's calling is to be as constant and explicit in making this dogmatic pronouncement as the Apostle Paul in the Word of God. He cannot fail to discipline those who, while murdering their unborn children, attend his church and take the Lord's Supper there.

(Tim) We've all been through it many times, with many different families. Struggling to survive, financially, and no high salary on the pastor's conscience keeping him from asking the Lord for His provision, one of the few wealthy families the church has managed to get bonded within her fellowship becomes an increasing problem and it becomes apparent the only answer is formal discipline.

The years past are littered with informal discipline: many pastoral visits to the home, pastoral counseling sessions, post-small group exhortations from fellow believers, deacons, and elders; the wife has had the sweetest and wisest Titus 2 women go aside with her to entreat and exhort her concerning the damage her sin is causing to her own home and the Household of Faith. But all the informal, quiet, gentle ministry has been to little avail.

The family's wealth has complicated matters beyond the simple question of the church's fiscal solvency. The pastor and elders wonder--at first privately, but then openly in elders meetings when harm the family has caused others in the flock is on the agenda--how the congregation and community would be able to understand the discipline of such a beautiful and gifted and (shall we say rich?) family. No one would deny the family's generosity has been used by God to strengthen the fellowship. They have been a blessing in many ways and are loved for it. But also for who they are: hospitable, kind, loving, generous.

Of course, the wealth also has been a key contributor to their failures. There's been a bodaciousness to the sin that's seemed to have its origin in the pride of wealth. But as the private admonitions have failed to produce any substantive change, the family's wealth and resources have continued...

(Tim) This is copied from the discussion under an earlier post, "If they desire his help...," and it may be helpful for readers to read that post and discussion, first. But the subject matter of the discussion is so important for the good of the Church and our readers' own souls and families that I'm posting this extended response here, on the main page.

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For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Jesus; Luke 19:10)

The issue is simple. Shepherds are gifted, called, and ordained to shepherd a particular flock of particular souls. This means going after the one lost sheep. Jesus our Good Shepherd came after us when we were His enemies and didn't welcome His interest and pastoral care. Remember, He died?

And if you've worked with sheep (or goats or cattle), you know that one lost sheep often is perfectly opposed to being brought back to the sheepfold. Sometimes he must be manhandled to get him to safety. This is the reason David, in Psalm 23, says...

(Tim) Often, our session wrestles with the question whether this or that baptism is valid. For instance, if a young woman has come to faith through the ministry of Campus Crusade here at Indiana University, following which several of her Crusade sisters baptized her in Showalter Fountain, should we require her to be baptized again for membership in Church of the Good Shepherd?

We did.

More common are questions related to the validity of baptisms done by churches holding membership in non-profit religious organizations where the marks of the Church are absent and the organization publicly confesses that, for instance, sodomy and baby-slaughter may be acts of faithfulness before God. From my years in the PC(USA), it will increasingly be true that baptisms under the aegis of these non-profit religious organizations and their affiliates are not done in the Name of the Triune God, but rather using the modalistic language of "Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer." 

Good brother, Andrew Webb, has a helpful blog where he recently wrote about this question, giving a history of the debate among Reformed churches with particular emphasis on North America, and linking to a number of helpful historic documents related to this matter...

(Tim, w/thanks to our Redeemer Manhattanite correspondent) Pastor Rick Phillips recently did a post critical of a review of Willow Creek written by the Rev. Dr. Tim Keller. Rick was apologetic as he got started:

But fortunately, truth got the better of Rick and he quickly hit his stride. Check it out.

(Tim) This post was a comment by son Joseph under a previous post titled "Beware of Despising Preaching." I thought it should be a post of its own.

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Now what about public video recordings (as opposed to private video feeds, which I will address next)? Here I would make the same argument. Watching a recording of somebody preaching is not the same thing as them preaching to you. And yet there is a big difference between audio and video, isn't there? One difference is that video makes you *think* and *feel* that the person is addressing you directly, much more effectively than audio does. Why?

Sure I am, if it were well understood how much of the pastoral authority and work consisteth in church guidance, it would be also discerned, that to be against discipline, is near to being against the ministry; and to be against the ministry is near to being absolutely against the Church; and to be against the Church, is near to being absolutely against Christ. Blame not the harshness of the inference, till you can avoid it, and free yourselves from the charge of it before the Lord. - Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, (Banner of Truth, Carlisle PA: 1974) p. 111.

When a man rejects the exhortations and admonitions of his elders over a period of years, the time will come when he will turn his back on Christ's Church. If he refuses to repent and continues to give himself to sin, his sin will bear fruit and he will be separated from the Body of Christ. He may find another church that will allow him to hide in his sin; that church may marry and baptize and bury him and his family as churches have done across the centuries; but his repudiation of the discipline of Christ's Bride is his repudiation of Jesus Christ. The binding of earth and Heaven is no game of Angry Birds or Where's Waldo...

If you've not read Citizens' Arrest! Citizens' Arrest!, please read it first. Then this. (TB)

Here's a true story showing how important it is for pastors and elders to challenge one another's motives. Our session (elders board) had been working with a schismatic family of our church for years when MTW TE David Wegener came home on home assigment one year.

We have a policy that David is a pastor of our church when he's here. He'd served our congregation before leaving for Zambia and we have never wanted to lose his wisdom and counsel, as well as that of his wife, Terri, when they're in town. So David favors us with his presence when we have session meetings each month and he often gets into the yoke with us on some of our thornier pastoral matters. Terri teaches our women's groups and David preaches in worship and teaches in Clearnote Pastors College as often as he and Terri are not out deputizing at their supporting churches.

So this particular evening we were again discussing the latest schismatic behavior of this family and David had just gotten back in town and was present. He knew the family well, including that they were quite wealthy...

Thank you to our conference chairman, Jared Cochran, and all the brothers and sisters who did the work of Clearnote Fellowship's 2012 Conference, "I Believe in God, the Father Almighty," which concluded yesterday afternoon. The preaching and teaching strengthened me, personally, and it was a great joy to meet new brothers and sisters, as well as to renew bonds of love with those who have been here before.

In our world bound in chains of the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life, we must take time apart to sit under the preaching of the Word of God, to pray, to worship, and to share in Christian fellowship. This was our work this weekend and it was food for our souls. Time apart for God and His beloved.

Make plans now to join us next year for Clearnote Conference 2013 titled "She Is Our Mother."

It has been the testimony of church fathers from the time of Jesus Christ that you cannot have God for your Father if you refuse to...

When I was serving my former churches (a yoked parish of two congregations) an hour north of Madison, Wisconsin, a young man working toward a graduate degree at UW(Madison) served the congregations as a pastoral intern and we became close. As time went by, he decided to enter the ministry and to train at the Christian Reformed Church's Calvin Seminary.

Even then, back in the eighties, Calvin Seminary was going down the tube. Turning our backs on God's Order of Creation, Adam first then Eve, was all the rage and Calvin was drowning in this rebellion. Dutchmen were reaping the fruit of their diffident-to-cold relationships with their wives and children and, having sown the wind, they were about to reap the whirlwind.

Ortega y Gasset pointed out that true thinking begins with exaggeration, you understand.

Another pastor in the area was on the board of Calvin and he told us the school was going liberal and it was only a matter of time before the Christian Reformed Church would follow...

This past week, the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh planted a new Anglican diocese in Indianapolis right under the nose of The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis and its liberal bishop, the Rt. Rev. Catherine Waynick. ...They duly elected and consecrated The Rt. Rev. Amos Akinseye Fagbamiye and enthroned him at the Anglican Cathedral Church of the Resurrection as the first bishop of the Diocese. ...

This is an example of the direct intervention of an African Anglican archbishop on US soil in order to lay the groundwork and foundation for orthodox Anglicanism on these shores. There is not a thing the US Episcopal Church can do about it. They can grind their teeth, yell, and scream to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Consultative Council about violating boundaries, but it will all fall on deaf ears. The Nigerians have landed. They want the gospel reclaimed on US soil because, they argue, the Episcopal Church has abandoned the historic gospel... (excerpt of an article by David Virtue)

Anglican bishops from Africa are violating parish boundaries here in these United States, planting orthodox Christian parishes where the presiding Anglican/Episcopal authorities have betrayed the faith. Is this good or bad?

Ask Darryl Hart and his fellow Escondidoites and it's bad...