Over the last two years I have sent out many blogs that you received and did not read. Not sure whether you were not interested or you thought “who is he to be spewing this garbage.” Never the less I can a sure you that I did my research before I wrote the blogs and for the most part they accurately portrayed the present and did a fair assessment of what lay in the future for our country and culture. However, in the future my blogs will be oriented towards Christian Ethics and not national and world politics. Why the change? I am not sure; maybe an epiphany or maybe I am just tired of politics. The following is a transition of thought into a new approach to the heart of believers and a new outlook towards the national and world landscape. If you would rather not receive these, let me know and I will remove your name from the list. If you do want to read the blogs please read them on the Skandalon blog site. In the future you will only get the first paragraph and not the entire blog, because on the blog site is a place for your comments and impressions; this will help me in determining if I am making sense or just rambling. If you enjoy this and find it helpful to you as you live as aliens in this lost world, please forward to your friends and relatives. Thanks.
Call of The Priesthood
Family values are a thing of the past, divorce is at an all time high, sexual perversion and homosexuality are out of the closet and increasingly being accepted, crime is rampant, the government is out of control, taxes are higher than ever, politicians are corrupt, there are places where you can’t walk the streets in the day time, Christians and Jews are persecuted and have lost any if not all influence in the world, secular humanism and paganism are on the rise, drugs and alcohol abuse are everywhere, standards of morality have been torn down, the court system is inadequate, there are not enough police to rein in crime, the culture is in a quagmire of decline. That was Crete in Apostle Paul’s time; not all that much different today, is it?
I think that we have the mental picture that it was easy for Paul to advance gospel of Christ in his day; that the world was different, a much better place in that it was open and receptive to the things of God, open to Godly values. That all Paul had to do was show up and people immediately flocked to him and embraced Christianity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul had come to Crete because the churches were in disarray, there were at least 100 churches on the island and most of them were engulfed in idolatry and were being greatly influenced by paganism. The world at that time was the sewer of paganism and the church was at a lost to know how to respond to the culture around it.
We live in a situation that is very similar to what confronted Paul and Titus. The great revivals of Christianity seem to be a thing of the past; they are only footnotes in the pages of history. Our government is forever passing laws making it more and more difficult for us to get out the message of Christ and to openly speak out against the evils of this world. There is a lot of talk, with books being written, about how the church needs to take a greater role in impacting the culture of our time. That we need to get out into the streets and demand that things change for the better; that we need to get involved into politics and propose laws that would mandate morality; that we need to stand against the evils of this world. But I am here to tell that is not the church’s goal. It sounds like a good idea, but our goal is not to impact our culture by changing people’s moral values. Our goal is not to impact our culture by creating laws that demand traditional family values. Our goal is not to make sure that the USA adheres to a national policy that mandates biblical morality. That is not our goal as defined by scripture. Scripture does not direct us to get involved in altering cultural morality. We are not told to be involved in advancing social conduct. Our mandate is to be interested in people being saved. That is our agenda; that is our only agenda. If we are going to change our culture we are going to change it from the inside out, not the outside in; one person at a time.
The question today is how are we supposed to respond now that our culture has declined and our society has become so pagan? How are we to react? What is the proper response of Christianity in a pagan culture? As a Christian what are you to do in a post Christian society that is unreceptive to the gospel and is outright hostile to Christianity as a way of life? The answer lies in our divine calling.
The single divine calling of the church is to bring sinful people to salvation through Christ. As a believer we have been given the responsibility of priesthood; i.e. a person who has one simple function, to bring people to Jesus Christ, to usher them into God’s presence.
That is our only responsibility to the world as Peter says in1 Peter 2:5 (NKJV) (5) you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Chris. Just in case you miss the point, he says it again in 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. That is you are to proclaim and share the message and gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing there that says you are to become a legislator, a policeman, or march in the streets demanding morality. Your only job as royal priest is to share the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost world. Think of it like this, if we free someone from the slavery of homosexuality but we do not lead them to salvation, they are going to the same hell as an unsaved heterosexual. It makes no difference if you are a militant pro-abortionist, or a militant anti-abortionist, if you are not saved you are going to hell. It makes no difference if you are a policeman going to hell or a drug dealer going to hell; hell is the same for both. Our mission to present the gospel cannot be weakened because we don’t like the culture we live in. When we try to change people’s lives by changing their conduct without changing their spiritual heart we make them our enemy and ultimately enemies of Christ. As a priest we are to help change their hearts; then and only then will they change their conduct.
Jesus and Paul spent their time admonishing believers not to live like the world; but they did not spend much time condemning the pagans and their beliefs and practices. They did not call for violent resistance against unjust laws or inhuman punishments. Rather they called on believers to preach, teach, and witness to the transforming power of salvation through Jesus Christ. They called on us to love and show compassion for the lost, while at the same time condemning the sin in all people’s lives, including the believers.
The first eight verses of Titus 3 Paul calls on Titus and us to remind Christians to remember our duties as believers, to remember our former condition of unbelief and sin, to remember our salvation through Jesus Christ, and to remember our mission/duty to an unbelieving and lost world. This blog looked at what we are first to remember; our duties as a believer.
Titus 3:1-15 (NKJV) (1) Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, (2) to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.
I want to thank Pastor and theologian John MacArthur for his writings and inspiration for this blog. He is one of the great theologians of our time and I would encourage all to read his books and sermons.
