Avoiding Evil

It seems to me that people always think they know what is best for them. Replacing a sermon with drama, films, or entertaining music makes sense to some people because they believe that it is the best way they can learn and worship. Knowing the different ways to gain people’s attention could lead someone to believe that it is best to replace the sermon with something entertaining and stimulating. We think we know the best way to worship, the best way to learn, and the best way to evangelize, so we push towards those ends in order to accomplish what is best for God’s people. However, God says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) God knows what is best for us! It is God’s idea to have Godly men preach the word of truth. God chose this method as the best way, which means any method that we come up with on our own is inferior to what God has chosen. Preaching itself is the clearest revelation of God in worship.

At the point we begin to stray from doing things as the Bible clearly instructs we are basically saying to God, ‘What you came up with was ok, back then, but we think we can do it better now.’ There is something wrong when we think we can do things better than the way God would have us do them. God has chosen to save people through the preaching of His word by the guidance of His spirit through the mouths of Godly men.

“The most dangerous thing we can do is to return to spiritual worship. It would mean the end of the personality cults that have invaded the church. It would also mean the end of the “Christian consumerism” that has so twisted our sense of spiritual values. I have no doubt that the church that returned to true worship would lose people-”important” people-and probably have to make drastic cuts in the budget. But then-something would happen! A beautiful new sense of spiritual reality would result, with people glorifying God instead of praising men.” - Warren Wiersbe in Real Worship

“Dear Church,

Every time you turn around, it seems someone is setting a new record or proposing new standards. Things are constantly in flux. What is a given today will be changed tomorrow. What should concern us is that this changing of standards is not limited to things like the environment or automobile safety. It has now entered the arena of morality, and the changes are happening more quickly here than in any other arena of life. And it is very obvious that when moral standards change, they never are raised. They are always lowered.

As I write this letter, some political leaders in our nation, who call themselves “Christian,” are showing a blatant disregard for what Scripture says about the very things they have been condoning and even promoting. I recall a speech Senator Patrick Moynihan gave several years ago in which he talked about “defining deviancy down.” He pointed out how we are adjusting our moral code and standards to match the decline of morality in our country. This way we can continue to think well of ourselves because we are meeting our own standards. Yet with every new standard we set, we move farther away from God.

As shocking as it is to think our nation is actually doing this, it is even more shocking to find the church, which is supposed to be setting the standard, actually contributing to the decline. And this inclination to reinterpret what God has said, in order for it to fit how we want to live, has entered every part of our lives as Christians. It is even affecting how the church views worship.”

This has been an excerpt taken from Return to Worship by Ron Owens. This is an excellent book that I would suggest all followers of Christ get and read. It was published in 1999 by Broadman & Holman Publishers and forwarded by Henry Blackaby. Go pick yourself up a copy and start reading… why are you still sitting here… GO!

Well, ok. If you are not going to get up and go get a copy right now then here are a few more quotes from the book to hold you over until you get your very own copy:

“The real issue in worship is not if we will worship or how we will worship, but whom we will worship.”

“What are the essentials for offering God acceptable worship? We won’t find them in human reasoning, for that is nothing but man’s opinion and is what has created the division over worship in the church in the first place. The only safe and sure place to turn is to the Scriptures.”

“If our view of God is anything other than His Self-revelation through His Word, then the god we worship is one of our own making, one fashioned to suit what we want God to be.”

“The measure in which we know God is the measure in which we will be able to worship Him.”

“The only standard, or plumb line, that streches unchanged throughout history is the standard of God’s Word. In it we have the revelation of God’s character, who He is, and what He requires. There is no other goodness or rightness apart from Him.”

On January 15th I posted “It’s a choice between Marriage or Madness” which was my response and thoughts after reading the script of a debate that Dr. Mohler had participated in. (Since that time a friend of mine received the actual debate on a video tape that I will be watching.) There have been several comments to this post on both sides of the fence dealing with this issue, which I appreciate and encourage, however, there are some comments left that spur in me a desire to write even more about the issue. Rather than leaving a huge comment and response to the old post I have decided to post my response as a new entry in order to allow for more discussion of this issue.

Sexual orientation is a farce! I certainly do not believe that people have an innate sexual disposition towards homosexuality. If that were true then we would have to consider whether people also have an inherent nature towards bestiality, pedophilia, and maybe even murder. Homosexuals claim they cannot help their condition because they are born with it, however any sexual perverse person can make the very same claim. If homosexuality is legalized because of this then shouldn’t we also legalize any sexual orientation making it ok to have sex with children, animals, and small inland creatures? We should certainly stop punishing all of these poor innocent people for the murder and crimes they commit because they are nothing more than slaves to their own predisposition. In fact no one should be accountable for anything because we are all born with a certain nature that does not allow us to make choices. That simply does not make any sense! Religious leaders absolutely do not need to separate sexual orientation from sexual morality. There is only one orientation, that is between a married man and woman and anything outside of that is immorality.

Homosexuality is an abnormality. A relationship like this is not normal in any sense. I have known and still know a number of homosexual people and in fact, I have family members who are active homosexuals. It perplexes me that homosexuals claim to have natural relationships and yet the very premise of their relationship is based on deceit. In almost all homosexual relationships, one person is ‘the woman’ of the relationship. This person acts like a woman, walks like a woman, talks like a woman, and has very feminine qualities even if they are a man! It is unnatural for a man to be a woman or a woman to be a man and yet homosexuals have to pretend they are one or the other in order to make their ‘mock’ relationship work. Therefore, you have women who dress like men and walk and act as if they are men and vise versa because they are playing a deceitful roll in an obviously unnatural relationship. If homosexuality was a natural relationship then both men could be and act like men and both women could be and act like women, and they would have the ability to procreated with one another to carry on their family genes just like all the other natural families… but wait a minute… they don’t have that ability! It is an abnormality and a perversion of what God intended the family to be.

I realize this is a hot topic that is swallowed up in disagreement and bickering, but it is also a very serious issue. To claim that homosexuals are born with a certain sexual orientation is to claim that God made homosexuals who they are and accepts them as such. If that were the case then this would not even be an issue today… the problem is that is not the case at all. There is no evidence of natural, healthy, homosexual relationships in the bible, but there is plenty to say about this type of behavior being unnatural, perversion, depravity, and the like. Our present culture should not be the standard to which we hold the bible, but the scripture should be the standard of which we hold society accountable to. Unfortunately everyone would like to make the Bible say what it doesn’t and attribute qualities to God that He does not have.

I look at the levels of divorce, abortion, violence, and corruption in America today and know that the defining issue is not homosexuality, but sin. We are a nation filled with it, enamored by it, and slaves to it. Homosexuality is just one of many sins that defile the creation of God and corrupt what he has created to be pure, holy, and blameless. I sleep soundly knowing that I am covered by the blood of Christ and I wait eagerly for the day to be face to face with Him. Yet it is ever so startling to know that in a nation filled with divorce, abortion, violence, corruption, sexual perversions and the like, it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming. Not only will God turn us over to sin so our own sin will destroy us, but in the end His full wrath will burn against those who are not followers of Christ, and that indeed should be feared.

God made us in his image and we have been trying to return the favor ever since! Maybe it is time we start living how God wants instead of living how we want and then bending the truth of God to fit our lifestyles.

Pressed

So lets say you have a friend who you have known for at least 4 or 5 years. Ya’ll go out to eat at a new restaurant and he orders some toasted ravioli for an appetizer. This friend sits and eats the entire thing of toasted ravioli in front of you without offering any to you, and even when you hint as if you want one he laughs at you and continues to eat them. Now you become curious and ask him the question, “what if (a certain female: who has a boyfriend and who he has no chance with whatsoever) was sitting across from you, would you give her a toasted ravioli?” And he says, yes! YES! Not only one toasted ravioli, an entire flippin box! What would you think about that?

Pressed