Abortion in America

While in college, I took a geography class that met the requirements for my undergraduate degree. The Professor of the class was a nice man. He and I liked each other. We even ate together a time or two. He was a leader at First Baptist Church. I considered him one of my favorite profs at school. However, he was wrong on a lot of things.

In that particular class, I found out that sometime in the next 30 years the world would run out oil. Now since that was 15 years ago; I guess we should be running out soon. I was told that every day loggers destroyed a square mile of rain forest, and if they continue to do this, the rain forest would be gone in 30 years. He was a firm believer that humans were affecting the climate. He taught us that the earth had to be billions of years old, and we could not take the Biblical account of creation seriously. This was all taught by a Southern Baptist at a Southern Baptist college. Amazing isn't it?

I was never shocked by anything I was taught, but every now and then I did get angry. One day in class, my professor decided to bring up abortion. He said that if we did not allow abortion to happen the United States would be over crowded, and I quote, "You Fundamentalists would be changing your tunes."

The one thing that most liberals don't understand about us so called fundamentalists is that we believe that God is in control. To begin with, his statement was nothing more than foolishness. The United States is not over-populated. We are not even close to reaching our maximum limit. Nevertheless, this is not what made me angry. What made me angry was his certainty that I would change my point of view according to the circumstances I find myself in. What he needed to realize was that his personal ethics might be based on the situation, but I do not hold to situational ethics. My ethics are founded in God's word, and even if his statement about over-population was true, my personal beliefs do not change when things get difficult.

Since 1973, It is estimated that 43 million abortions have been done. This is a staggering number. This is a number that I believe that all of us will have to answer for one day. The Bible teaches us that God will judge the nations. I have a hard time believing That God will allow those of us living in America to go on without answering for this terrible sin.

I want everyone that reads this blog to understand God's opinion of life. It was murder that brought God down from heaven to talk with Cain. The Bible tells us that the blood of Able cried out to God (Gen. 5:8.). I wonder what the cries of the blood of 43 million must sound like to God.

God is the giver and the keeper of life. The taking of innocent life is an abomination that God will not take lightly. In Leviticus chapter 21, the Jews are taught what they are to do if a man is murdered in their city without knowing who killed him. The elders of the city are to take a heifer outside of the city and break its neck, and wash their hands in the blood of the heifer. They are then to beg God to have mercy on their city where this man's life was taken. Why? Because God takes life very seriously. And unpaid for murder, will not stay that way forever.

The Christians that read this blog, need to remember this anniversary of Roe V. Wade and weep for our country. We need to pray that God would heal our land. We need to pray that these murders would not fall upon our nation. Let us hope and pray that God will be merciful to us. We certainly do not deserve it. Let us praise God for he is good. His love and mercy has so far held back his justice. Let us pray that this continues.

'Silly Urgency': It Is Not My Fault!

I do my best to keep my posts up to date. I like to write about things that are happening in the world as we live. However, this post is a little different. This post was created by something that has bothered me for about 5 years. I hope by writing about it, I can finally put it to rest.

About 5 years ago, I was at an evangelism meeting listening to someone that the organizers of the event thought was important. He began quoting statistics about our state (Ohio). I did not write down the statistics that he used. So my memory of them may be a little off. However, I believe you will figure out that being precise doesn't affect the overall meaning of this post.

He said that there were 11.5 million people in the state of Ohio. He said that only about 1/5 go to church on Sunday mornings. He then went onto to tell us that only 10% of the churches they go to our evangelical. Then he said that something like 7 million Ohioans are considered lost. Now at this point I am all right. The only statistic that I can confirm is that there is about 11.5 million people in Ohio. However, it would not surprise if 7 or 8 million of them are not Christians. It is the way he used these statistics that bothered me.

He concluded his remarks with this line: "There are 7 million lost people in Ohio, and it is your fault". He then went on to preach about the laziness of the church. He told us that if we do our job more people would be saved. I am sure he yelled a lot at us and got a few amens from those in the congregation who do not read their Bible all that much.

Now we all know the old saying that statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics. I do not want to call this man a liar, however, I do want to call him a poor theologian. The sad part about all of this is that I have heard other men say things similar to this at other conferences.

I want to assure all of you who read this post, "It is not your fault." It has never been your fault. It never will be your fault. It simply cannot be your fault. On judgment day, there is not one lost man who can bring this charge against a saint. It is time that we get rid of this 'silly urgency' that so many evangelists want us to have.

There is no place in the Bible where it says that it is the churches fault that someone is lost. The Bible blames lostness on the individual. Certainly, each individual is born into a state of sinfulness. However, that same individual chooses sin over righteousness.

This line of thinking was brought slowly onto us by revivalists. It has absolutely no weight in the Scripture. If it did, we would all be in trouble. If I thought that a person was lost because I didn't pray enough for them, I would never leave the steps of the church. I would just sit there and pray all day long and have my food brought into me. If I thought a persons lostness was my fault, all I would ever do is cry. I could not live with myself. I could not function as a human. Thank God it is not my fault.

God is in control. He is the author of our salvation. We are to be obedient to his will. If you want to blame someone for being lost outside of the individual; I encourage you to point the finger at God. He set up the criteria for salvation. However, I think He would want you to read your Bible and figure it out for yourself.

The moral of this story is simple. When you get up to preach or teach; start with the Bible. Statistics and stories will let you down. They will lead you to say things that are not true. We need to be very careful about what we say concerning spiritual things. The Bible has some very bad things to say about false teachers. Let us be certain about our facts before we state them as undeniable truth.

Sorry, No Post This Week

I am attending a conference this week. I will be back next Wednesday. Thank you for checking in.

Modern Evangelism Vs. Biblical Evangelism

"God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life!" I read something like this on almost every evangelistic tract that I pick up. The only problem with this statement is that it may not be all together true. In Romans 9:13 it states, "As it is written, Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated." Why did God hate Esau? If you read the entire chapter you will find out that God hated Esau so that his Sovereign plan would be fulfilled.

I must also question the phrase "a wonderful plan". I believe that God is in control, thus all things will work for his glory. God's plan is always wonderful at least to him. However, I doubt that Judas would have thought that God's plan for his life was wonderful. For he was declared a Devil from the beginning. It was stated that it would have been better for him not to be have been born. I would say that Esau would have had problems with his plan. I would say that Pharoah would not have liked his plan either.

It seems to me that many Christians will say and do whatever they can to get a person to pray a "sinner's prayer" that isn't even found in the Bible. When it comes to evangelism, for many, the ends justifies the means. "Whatever it takes" to get someone saved has become our battle cry as of late. I believe that if we truly study what the Bible says about evangelism we will "know what it takes" for someone to be saved. I want to assure you that it isn't the method that brings about salvation, it is the savior that brings about salvation.

In Matthew chapter 19, a rich young man comes to Jesus and asks what he needs to do to be saved. I want us to modernize this text. Let us pretend that a rich young banker comes to church on Sunday. He walks down the isle and asks the pastor what he needs to do to go to Heaven. I would bet my house (If I were a gambling man) that what the pastor would say to this banker would be much different than what Jesus said to the rich young ruler. I believe the pastor would tell him to say this little prayer, and if he really meant it, he would be saved. Later, we would baptize the man, and if he stayed in the church we would make him a Deacon. Whereas, Jesus told the man to sell all that he had, and give it to the poor, and come follow Jesus.

One of the great Baptist distinctives is a regenerated church. We believe that a person must be saved to join the church. However, I believe that our churches are full of lost people because we have submitted to modern evangelistic practices instead of Biblical ones. Our faith has become one of ease instead of obedience. "Whatever it takes" to get someone saved. My dear reader, the only way of salvation is complete submission to Jesus Christ. This must be taught. We must stop watering down the truth for the sake of numbers.

It is so easy to get involved with the marketing of the Gospel. We live in a society that packages everything for masses. The problem with Christianity is that it is hard. We are to pick up the cross daily and follow Jesus. This makes it difficult to package. Thus, we sand off the pointy edges to make it more palatable to Joe and Jane America. What we forget is that those pointy edges are important; and if we take them off, our product is not true.

Our current evangelistic methods boil down to "Easy Beliefism". If we want to get back to the Bible we must start teaching "Difficult Beliefism". As a matter of fact, we may need to teach "Impossible Beliefism". For Jesus teaches us in Matthew 19 that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to get to Heaven. Let us praise God for verse 26: "With God all things are possible."