Deutero Q

GRAND RAPIDS — On Saturday night Jim Kendall swivels on his bar stool at the Belly Up Tavern, snuffs out his cigarette and says, "Gotta go, guys. I'm gigging tomorrow."

The next morning at 10 a.m. Kendall, dressed in ironed Dockers and a Polo shirt, sings with gusto in the third row at Neighborhood Christian Center. "Praise God!" he shouts, lifting his hands and prompting others to chime in with "amen" and "glory." His infectious enthusiasm is just what the pastor ordered.

Kendall isn't a Christian, but he and hundreds of other people across the U.S. are getting paid as much as $12 an hour by temp placement agencies to pretend to be exuberant worshipers. "Praise decoy work is great," says one worshiper for hire who has lent his skills to more than 50 church services. He doesn't mind sitting through services, and considers the praise movements "good stretching exercise, like Tai Chi."

In the past five years, the worshiper-for-hire industry has flourished as pastors try to goose the energy level in dwindling churches. Temp agencies train decoys to clap, laugh and make affirmative noises during the sermon. Most prized is the ability to appear authentically engaged, but not overly so.

"It's a subtle art," says William Talbot, 67, who has temped as a worshiper since his retirement nest egg petered out. Talbot, a Jew by birth, says he writes grocery lists and the week's tasks while pretending to take sermon notes. Pastors hire worshipers for various reasons, but most often to avoid the humiliation of empty pews. "I did it to encourage the flock," says a pastor who wished not to give his name. "

Membership had slipped so instead of dropping a service, this gave us an interim solution until the staff and I figured out what to do." The worshipers for hire so enlivened his church that he hired them on a semi-permanent basis. Decoy crews rotate so the church's real members don't become suspicious. Back at the Belly Up on Sunday afternoon, Kendall is proud of his morning praise performance, and says he'll ask his agency for a raise based on his improved emulation of sincere worship. "I'd like to make a side career of it," he says, finishing his beer.

SAN ANTONIO — Pastor Tom Kirkland, who spelled the phrase "u suck" in his five-point outline last Sunday, has apologized to his church. "I should have looked it over more carefully," he says. "It was late Saturday night when I finished. I'm sorry." His five points, based on the story of Abraham, were:

Understand your calling

Say yes to God

Use the abilities he gave you

Call on him during hard times

Keep going!

Plenty of people were offended. "When I realized what he was spelling, I flipped over my outline so my son wouldn't see it," says Ursula Thompson, 46. The message of the sermon was lost on her, she says. But others say it's not the first time "unintentional" acrostics have popped up lately.

Kirkland, they suspect, is telegraphing his deep-rooted dissatisfaction. "He spelled 'losers' one Sunday and 'get lost' the next, and apologized for those, too," says one woman. "He's getting little kicks out of it."

source: larknews.com

Anyway, Ephesians 2: 5 says that God made us alive. That makes perfect sense, since in the first part of Ephesians 2 Paul referred to people as being dead (not merely sick) in transgressions and sins. Dead people cannot raise themselves to life!

I also read from Romans 10: 20, where Paul quotes Isaiah: "I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me." They did not seek?! They did not ask?! Oh my! What about our "all-important" free will? My response: Did our free will determine when and where we would be born in the natural realm? Did our free will choose our parents? Of course not.

In the spiritual realm, how can dead people choose God? About the only thing dead people can "do" is lay around and stink up a place! Indeed, Paul says in Romans 3:11 there is no one who seeks God. That makes perfect sense, if one accepts the scriptural witness that human beings are spiritually dead by nature.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me say that I do believe in free will. I make choices all the time. But the Bible is clear: In the spiritual realm, human will is in bondage. Apart from God's grace, we are powerless to help ourselves.

All of this is to say that I am so totally grateful that God reached down to save me. He raised me from death to life. He did it; I contributed nothing. Even the faith I exercised to trust in Christ was God's gift (Ephesians 2:8-9). Praise God for His initiative in saving me. Truly, Jonah was right: "Salvation comes from the Lord" (Jonah 2:9).

In his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, the Apostle Paul warned, "I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!" (Acts 20:29-31).

How true those words are today! While the Church of Jesus Christ has always faced opposition from outside, even more insidious is the threat to the Body of Christ from within. In our time, savage wolves are at work promoting the ordination of practicing homosexuals, the murder of unborn children and all kinds of wickedness.

The very things God calls evil, the world and many church leaders are calling good. Biblical orthodoxy has been subverted. Sound teaching is out; inclusiveness and political correctness are in. As a result, many sheep in the Church are falling prey to savage wolves and their destructive teaching.

As harsh as it sounds, many of the so-called "leaders" in the Church today are instruments of Satan rather than instruments of God. The Lord said, "By their fruit you will recognize them." Just look at the the fruit of those who are clamoring for homosexual ordination and abortion rights. The fruit is ungodly and rotten; in a word, it is death.

I realize these are strong words, but perilous times call for strong words and action. We are witnessing the self-destruction of many mainline churches, including the Presbyterian Church (USA). Savage wolves are running rampant. Their latest tactic is to prevent Bible-believing congregations from leaving the denomination with their property.

What must we do? We must step up our praying. I am not talking about cold, lifeless prayer, but ardent prayer empowered by the Spirit of God. We need to be on our knees and faces before the Lord God Almighty, repenting of our complacency and crying out for revival, which America and the mainline church of Sardis so desperately needs. Christ said to the church in Sardis, "I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead" (Revelation 3:1).

We must pray for the savage wolves, for their salvation and sanctification, even as we pray for our own sinful hearts. We must hate the practices and the wickedness that the savage wolves advocate, but we must love the people with Christ-like love.

We must do more than complain: we must live out the Word of God on a daily basis, holding fast to sound doctrine (1 Timothy 4:16). And we must always, in the words of Paul, "Be on guard!"

These are perilous times. The savage wolves are many. But of this we can be sure: God is sovereign; He rules and reigns. Good will ultimately triumph and the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord!

Psalm 27:8

"My heart says of you, 'Seek his face!' Your face, Lord, I will seek."

"Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of his will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God’s own word.

Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible - the God-centered outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace. Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form.

And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of his great preordained plan for his creatures and his church. The five points assert no more than God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that he is sovereign everywhere."

(From J.I. Packer's introduction to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.)

I resonate with the following words by J.I. Packer in his introduction to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. They highlight well the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism. Calvinism is clearly the more God-centered (and biblical) gospel. It begins with--and is rightly focused on--God and His glory, His attributes, His wrath against sin, His love and mercy revealed in Jesus Christ, etc.

Calvinism (i.e., biblical Christianity) diagnoses people as being spiritually dead outside of Christ, unable to contribute anything to their salvation. In the Arminian view, people are merely sick and are thus able to crawl to God to be saved. Anyway, here are Packer's words:

"Now, here are two coherent interpretations of the biblical gospel, which stand in evident opposition to each other. The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content. One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God who enables man to save himself. One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind - election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit - as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly.

The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, all who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that man’s salvation is secured by any of them. The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms. One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man; one regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it."

"I would like to say a final word to those pastors who find themselves trying simultaneously to be guardians, resources, and models. You also are seekers, and you will do yourselves and your congregations much harm if you ignore your own search. The prayer of Psalm 27, 'Your face, O Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me,' is the daily prayer of every Christian, including Christians who are among the clergy. This prayer has been answered, is answered, and will be answered every day, for the God we seek has come among us with this promise: 'I am with you always.' That is the heart of your ministry. Everything else is secondary."

Well said. And well worth pondering.

I just came across some interesting information from an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times: In 1960, members of mainline churches (Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like) accounted for 40 percent of all American Protestants. Today, it is more like 12 percent. Wow, that is a serious decline.

My conclusion is that mainline (more appropriately, "sideline") Protestantism is a cultural dinosaur on the verge of extinction. Not surprisingly, conservative/Bible-believing denominations are growing and thriving.

It is amazing to me how many churchgoers believe in a "god" of their own imagination, a sentimental deity who overlooks sin and ushers everyone into His Kingdom.

In this regard, I think of a conversation I had with a churchgoing person who mentioned that she works with Muslims and atheists who are, in her words, "good people." With much emotion in her voice, she declared that people are good by nature and that God will find room for everyone in His Kingdom, even those who refuse to trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation.

One might expect such a view from an unchurched person, but this lady is very actively involved in her congregation. Her sincere--but deluded--beliefs caused me to wonder what people are being taught (or are not being taught!) in churches today.

Are people basically good? Will God save everyone, giving free Kingdom passes to atheist and devil worshipper alike? From the Bible's point of view, the answer is a categorical "no." Scripture clearly teaches that people are not inherently good; we are sinners by choice and by nature. In this regard, many theologians speak of the doctrine of original sin, which refers to the state of sin that characterizes all human beings as a result of Adam's sin.

King David spoke of being sinful from the time of conception. "Surely I was sinful at birth," he said, "sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). Likewise, in Psalm 58:3 we read, "Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies." Jeremiah gave a stark description of the human condition when he said in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

Paul spoke of the sinful human condition in Ephesians 2:1-3 when he referred to people as spiritually dead apart from Christ. In fact, he said sinful human beings "were by nature objects of [God's wrath]." One should not take lightly the phrase "by nature." Paul made this statement because all human beings come into the world in a state of sin, having inherited the sinful condition that characterized fallen Adam.

The second chapter of Ephesians makes clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that people are not basically good but are sinful by nature and objects of God's wrath apart from Jesus Christ. This point of view is neither politically correct nor popular. It certainly does not square with many people's conception of God. But what should we expect from those who ignore God's self-revelation in Holy Scripture? When we disregard or distort the Bible, how easy it is to create our own god!

John Calvin noted how people often conjure up gods of their own making. "Just as waters boil up from a vast, full spring," Calvin said, "so does an immense crowd of gods flow forth from the human mind, while each one, in wandering about with too much license, wrongly invents this or that about God himself."

When thinking about God and/or human nature, it is critically important to be informed by His self-revelation in Scripture. And God's scriptural revelation is clear: human beings are sinners by nature and by choice and are, apart from God's saving grace in Jesus Christ, objects of His wrath.

The recent outbreak of school shootings has caused me to reflect on what the Bible says about the human condition.

The biblical witness is clear that sinful behavior--such as the horrific murders in the Amish school--is more than a voluntary act; wicked deeds spring from a heart that is intrinsically sinful (Psalm 51:5; Psalm 58:3; Jeremiah 17:9; Ephesians 2:1-3). In other words, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice.