Evangelism

Remember, the goal of my writing on sexuality is not to demean women and promote male privilege. Every brash woman and effeminate man who hates Baylyblog never stops repeating these accusations, but they couldn't be further from the truth. Manhood is not privilege, but its opposite: responsibility. As Christ died for His Bride the Church, so man takes up his own cross and dies for the mother of his children, his lover, his bride.

The story of marriage is man dying so woman may give life and nurture it. Where that story is not told, marriage doesn't exist. It's not a private story for Christians. It's the timeless, transcultural story of sex written by God in the very DNA of His universe. To preach and live this story is to preach and live the Gospel.

Among the perishing, this Gospel witness is the stench of death. This is why worldlings outside and inside the church never stop scorning, mocking, hissing, and shaming those who try to be faithful witnesses to God's holy heterosexuality.

There can be no middle ground on sexuality, although many of us are frantic...

This guy comes up to Jesus and asks him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus' initial response is sort of a shock: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." He does not say this as though to contrast Himself with God, but rather to make a point about man vs God, generally. Nobody is good. Only God is good. This is a huge hint to help us understand where Jesus is going with the next part of his answer: "You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’"

Now let's be honest. This isn't anything like the answer you were expecting, is it? This guy just wants to know how to be saved. In our thinking Jesus is supposed to share the Gospel now. This man is open to instruction now in a way he might never be again. His question was like a giant lob in slow-pitch softball, just waiting for Jesus to connect with "the Gospel bat." All Jesus needed to do to make us happy was tell him to "believe" or maybe "repent and believe." Instead, Jesus whips out a can of law, and starts laying it on thick. Murder. Adultery. Theft. Lying.

If somebody did that today, we'd tell them it was a terrible waste of an excellent opportunity to share the Gospel. But we don't really feel free to do that with Jesus. So what do we make of this, and how do we apply it as we seek to learn from Jesus and become more like Him? Before we can answer that, we should probably read the rest of the story.

The man responds to Jesus with, "Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up." Then it says, "Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him..." (Here we all breathe a sigh of relief. Aha! Here comes the good news, right?) "...and said to him, 'One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.'"

Did you catch that? Jesus felt love for him. So He... gave him more law. Ugh. Jesus just doesn't seem to have the same "gospel centered” message we have, does He? But wait. It gets worse. The story continues: "at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property."

Here was a man who wanted to know how to be saved. He asked Jesus how to be saved. Jesus' answer was, "keep the law." When the guy says he's been keeping it, Jesus shows him where he hasn’t been, and how to change it. Jesus discourages the man so much with all the talk of the law that the man walks away sad.

There are a few choices for how to understand this:

Daughter Heather Ummel forwarded a link to this piece on the Paris slaughter by Fr. George Rutler, pastor of St. Michael's church in New York City. As always, today, Roman Catholics have a much better understanding of history and culture than Protestants, particularly Reformed Protestants. I say it to our shame. Thus someone like Fr. Rutler is able to put Paris in its proper historical context. He also points out the decadence of the end of Christendom which Muslims use to justify their present bloodlust—decadence to which R2K men and their willing helpers at LivingOut.org, the Gospel Coalition, and Covenant Theological Seminary have made significant contributions both past and present.

Culture doesn't lead the church. The church leads the culture, and each of these groups have led and still lead the church into compromise and silence concerning the wickedness of homosexualists. It's no accident, then, that Muslims see Christianity as morally repugnant. We've done what Covenant Theological Seminary's Professor David Jones said we should, making sodomy legal. It's time now to follow the footsteps of Gospel Coalition and their LivingOUT buddies in solidifying Professor Jones' revolution by commending the "gay Christian," "LivingOUT" Trojan horse. We'll also cave to the passage of pro-homosexualist laws by our civil magistrates because Two-Kingdom men want their shame at the Lord's commands to be affirmed and adopted by all churches to the end that no pastor or elder ever is so foolish as to preach publicly against any perversion, no matter how wicked.

So here we are, putting French flags up on FB and praying for the victims while pastors and preachers of the Gospel are silent about the destruction carried out by homosexualists and Islam.

Never forget that the atrocities committed by Islamic jihadists are only the present manifestation of the bloodlust that has characterized their Christian heresy from its inception. Muslims evangelize by the sword. Christians evangelize by the preaching of God's Word. Sadly, though, the victims of this particular Islamic bloodletting were not men and women who, with their deaths, entered Heaven to hear their blessed Master's words, "well done, my good and faithful servants."

The very opposite. There are only two masters of souls here on this earth, Almighty God and Satan. So says Jesus (Acts 26:16-18).

Satan was the master of those who died in the Bataclan concert hall...

Every abortion causes two deaths: the death of the baby and the death of the mother's conscience.  - Mother Teresa

‪#‎defundPP‬ ‪#‎prolifesummer‬ ‪#‎PPsellsbabyparts‬ ‪#‎anotherboy‬

Building on Pope Francis's commendation of Evangelical preaching, I thought it was telling that the talks I heard at this year's Auburn Avenue Pastors Conference did not mention preaching. The subject of the conference was "Salt and Light," but there was nothing about preaching. This is the state of preaching in the Reformed church today; we're forsaking preaching for the sacraments, liturgy, and culture (art, music, poetry, etc.) and these are the means of grace we trust for bringing in the Kingdom of God. 

Meanwhile Pope Francis calls Roman Catholics to know their people and to give themselves to preaching.

If you attend the worship services presided over by most Reformed celebrities today, you'll find the sermons are either vacuous exercises in redemptive-historical technique or yawn-inducing lectures on this or that theological truth. The sort of stuff coming from the pulpits of the men who have been called to tall-steeple churches to preach to the Reformed bourgeoisie today in these United States, at least, is never noteworthy for its dependence upon...

Frankly, the heart of good Christian ministry is to accommodate without capitulating. - Tim Keller to a room full of the chattering class

Yes, this is a perfect summary of Tim's philosophy of shepherding God's flock. And yes, it is entirely wrong.

I've often said that, beyond his specific doctrinal errors, our main objection to Tim Keller should be his take on contextualization. If you read or listen to him...

How many instruments will Philip Moyer play...and will one of them be a kazoo? Will Curtis finally sing "O, Holy Night?" I'll grant, these questions are important, but they are irrelevant if you don't make plans right now to attend the 8th annual Clearnote Christmas Spectacular this Friday or Saturday at 7:00 PM. More than anything else, it's a beautiful opportunity for your friends and neighbors to hear The Gospel. Will you take a few minutes right now to invite them?

Here's a playlist of several videos from previous years:

A man's enemies will be the members of his household. - Matthew 10:36

Imagine having retreated into the radical two kingdom (R2K) posture toward the state, then waking up to find you are a citizen of North Korea. Your civil magistrate is Kim Jong-un and he's just arrested Jeffrey Fowle, an American missionary in his seventies on a group tour through North Korea, for leaving his Bible behind in a hotel room. You have many brothers and sisters in Christ who have been executed by the state for testifying to Jesus Christ and you're a pastor of a house church. What do you do?

Maybe...

A short interview filled with wisdom. The pride of intellectuals. The difficulty of backing down from public positions. The burning horror of the memory of one's past wickedness, leading others astray. And the fear of God.

The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death. (Proverbs 14:27)

The Church is starving for want of pastors who preach the fear of God; who proclaim original sin, the Law, death, judgment, and Hell. God's grace to a man begins with the man being scared.