| Whatsoever
Things Are True
by Dan Coburn Pastor, Emmanuel Baptist Church pastordan@mtida.net Heard a preacher friend of mine in Powell Tenn. speak on this a few years ago and it is still true today. The most controversial verse in the Bible is ----- wait for it ---- John 14:6. Just walk into a crowd and proclaim: "Only born again Christians will be in heaven; all others will be separated from God for eternity", and see what happens. You will be called a bigot, arrogant, intolerant and cruel. The world is fine with Jesus in a manger; a loving tolerant all inclusive baby and friend of sinners; even Prince of Peace is not offensive. But when you quote our text, His ratings plummet. The world thinks that "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" means to find your own unique alternative way to God. NOT. According to the verse above, Jesus is "the Way" singular definite article; "The Truth" singular definite article, and "The Life" singular definite article. He continues - "and no one comes unto the Father but (except) by (via) me". This is pretty exclusive. How about Acts 4:12? "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved". This isn't ambiguous, and it's either true or it isn't. Let's turn the Spiritual Switch: Up till about a hundred and fifty years ago, we operated on what we'll call Traditionalism, in the which God was the answer to everything. Kids learned to read out of what was called a "primer" and was basically the Bible. Then post Darwin, we "evolved" to what is known as Modernism where Science was going to liberate us. "Only science can explain reality" they said. "Nothing supernatural" they said. The problem came when the Church in an effort not to offend, endeavored to placate this line of thinking. Biblical miracles were explained away. We adopted a Social Gospel which denied Life Transformation in favor of good deeds. Fast forward to today. Now we have arrived at = Post-modernism. Acknowledging the fact that Modernism couldn't answer the big questions ie = Who am I? where did I come from? and where am I going?; and moving from Science establishes truth, we end up with "There is no truth". It's all about subjective feelings. My feelings hold as much weight as yours, what's true for you may not be true for me. Nugget: Post-modernism in the Church disguises itself as Humility and Tolerance, but if you listen closely, you will hear neither, only Unbelief. More on this later if anyone is still listening. God Bless. |
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