The Social Implications of the Gospel
There is no occasion, no situation arising, including when social and political issues are in focus, when we can set the Bible to one side. Many are reluctant to do this fearful of charges of obscurantism or even worse being condemned as ‛extremist’ by our godless rulers. Yet the claims of the Gospel of Christ cannot be compromised. As a result, many professing Christians when defending their views on any number of matters hide their true biblical convictions hoping to gain respectability in the eyes of unbelievers. As a result, the claims of Christ on the thought and life of unbelievers remain unstated and godless men go away unchallenged by Him. A people whose life is not guided and moulded by the teaching of Scripture can in no way be thought of as a Christian nation. Unless a challenge goes out from the Word of God, defeat is inevitable. Evangelicals stand facing both ways at one and the same time, saying one thing to outsiders and another to their own people.
We need to remember that no legal order, be it Christian or something else, can be successfully imposed on the nation on a permanent basis unless the people themselves are carried along with it. The political system of a country will always reflect the faith and condition of the people. A system that enslaves will live produce a slave state. Only were the population to consist to a large degree of mature Christian believers would we be able to speak of a biblical political system. This is not the case by any means in modern Britain, far from it.
A genuine biblical social order will be based on the teachings of the Scriptures. All law is based on a system of morality and is therefore necessarily religious. Non-biblical social or legal order is also religious with implications for the Christian faith. It will be Christian or it will be anti-Christian. Revolution provides no solution. The outcome is rarely, if ever, helpful to anyone and historically has ushered in a way of life far worse than the one overthrown. The only way of change is regeneration and conversion through the preaching of the Gospel. Certain is that godless men will never produce a good society. Social renewal must begin with individual regeneration. Only then will anyone willingly submit to Scripture. Would to God we still had politicians of the calibre of the Victorian statestman, William Gladstone, who referred to the Bible as "the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture". It was he who installed J. C. Ryle as the first bishop of Liverpool.
Where regenerate men do not predominate in a given society a biblical order cannot be sustained as Oliver Cromwell discovered to his cost. A healthy Christian society needs biblical law and social order accompanied by evangelism in order to maintain itself. Evangelicalism falls short on social responsibility and action, but equally on authentic Gospel preaching. Social action must be in itself essentially evangelistic for it to succeed. Men will not submit to the Word of God unless first converted by a genuine work of the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:14-17). Social action and evangelism cannot be torn apart and separated.
1. There must be preaching of the sovereignty of God in all parts of the universe. There cannot be an inch where man is god, where the will of man determines all things. It is highly misleading to tell sinners that they are in control. This pretended authority and autonomy must be challenged. God is not at the beck and call of men.
2. Preaching must nurture and edify true Christian faith. God does not stand on the sidelines while men decide for or against Him. The Word of God must be expounded and rigorously applied. The congregation must be fed and challenged.
3. There must be a clear call for repentance. God commands all men everywhere to repent and submit to Him (Acts 17:30). All must be challenged to give up their self-centred ways and live according to the Scriptures. This applies to all men everywhere and includes our rulers, our judges, magistrates, men high and low. Salvation can never be offered as a kind of insurance policy for eternity as it so often is and remote from our present life.
4. Like it or not, being a Christian will inevitably have social implications. The lives of sinners are characterised by rebellion and insubordination to the Word of God and this must be made clear to men high and low. So often they are told something quite different, something much less: that their lives are not fulfilled, lack purpose, are not rich. They are never told what God requires, what God demands are. They are told nothing of God’s law. It is never explained to them that Christ is Lord of all and has made known His commandments.
Men must be made to face God’s claims over them. “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee” (Psalm 51:13). So often, however, when defending their views on social issues great play is made of the fact that their approach is not political, their arguments are not based on theological considerations. No one is challenged to believe the Bible and obey it. What is being defended, if by implication alone, is that every man has the right to be as gods, deciding for themselves what is right or wrong. Biblical social action must challenge man’s autonomy. Evangelicals have lost sight in such discussions all idea of seeing men converted and challenged to bring their lives to obedience to God’s Word and so will never achieve any meaningful social change.
1. The pluralism myth must be challenged as idolatry. Pluralism regards all religions as equally valid. It denies that any political system can be deduced from the Bible. It defends the right of all religions to exist in a given social order. It further maintains that no one can legislate morality. There is some truth in this last statement in that no one is made moral by the law. On the other hand, all law is moral because it is concerned with what is right and what is wrong. It punishes and restrains evil. It protects the good.
There are many kinds of morality: Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and many more. All are at odds with the Christian faith. Plato viewed many vile acts of perversion as noble acts of love, acts that in the Bible called for the death penalty. All law is based upon religious presuppositions. What should our laws then be if not Christian?
How can two contrary faith systems, say for example Christianity and humanism, co-exist side by side? The answer is, they cannot. The purer the form of pluralism, the quicker the breakdown of law and order follows and ensuing social chaos. The religion of the people determines the laws of the nation. What one religion asserts is good another will condemn as bad. It is simply not possible to give absolute freedom to every religion. How true are the words of Jesus: “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad” (Matthew 12:30). One will be for Christ or against Him. How can we encourage that which is against Christ? This would be profoundly sinful. There is no neutrality here.
Evangelicalism has no stated intention whatever to bring the nation’s laws to be subordinate to Christ. They have no conception of “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). They are, furthermore, not committed to carrying out the great commission give by the Lord Jesus to teach all nations to observe what He commanded. If they are not to follow Christ whom shall we then tell them to follow? Is there another?
“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matthew 18-20).
2. The myth of human rights is as dangerous as it is wrong. The theory of ‛inalienable human rights’ grew from the theories of government developed at the time of Enlightenment humanism.
Wrongs are not infringements of individual rights, but violations of God’s commands. Murder is wrong not because everyone has a ‛right’ to life, but because it has been defined and declared wrong by God.
God does not legislate arbitrarily, but in accord with His own character. We must respond to our fellow men in the way God stipulates because all are made in His image. We bless “... God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God” (James 3:9). Clearly this is wrong. Capital punishment also rests on this fact.
“And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 9:5-6).
No man has license to legislate as he will. Our lawgiver can only be God Himself, no other.
“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us” (Isaiah 33:22).
We have taken liberty for granted. We have turned it into a ‛right’, when it ought to have been recognised as the gift of Christ and the reward of Christian justice. It can never be thought of as an end in itself. We have called something a ‛right’ that which exists as a blessing of God and not without Him. A nation that obeys God, worships God, reaps God’s blessings of security, peace and stability. It is not our ‛right’. In a such a godly society, the poor and defenceless are protected and safe. The opposite is true in a society that has turned its back on God. The rewards of obedience are not ‛human rights’. This would be to infer that these things belong to us all quite apart from obedience to the Word of God and to say we have some king of claim on God’s blessings.
Men are blessed according to obedience and godliness and these blessings cannot be claimed as a ‛right’. God may well withdraw them at any time. We have no ‛right’ to protection and a peaceful life. We have a duty towards God and the laws He has given. Where these laws are obeyed there will be a climate of safety and peace. These things can never be understood as something God owes men. They will be a gift.
The modern humanist State puts all these things the wrong way round. Instead of enforcing the law, it defends ‛rights’. The only ‛human rights’ are those granted to us by the State. Murder is what the State says it is and their law is arbitrary. According to the Bible, men only have a right to death and not a right to life because of Adam’s transgression, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12); also because of their own sin, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); everyone deserves death rather than life, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. ... For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:21 & 23). If we live, it is by of God’s grace.
The ‛rights’ of men are consistently used against the Christian faith by our courts of law. The concept of the ‛right to life’, the mother’s ‛right to a quality of life’ has been used to legalize abortion. The term ‛human rights’ is nebulous and far-reaching. It grants to the State a carte blanche with respect to its legislative judicial power.
The State has total power to decide which rights exist and how they are to be applied, The ‛right to privacy’ is applied to hospitals carrying out abortions, but not to banks or the internet. These things are more important to the State than human life. In the Old Testament abortion is classed as murder demanding the death penalty (see Exodus 21:23).
No man is given any powers by God simply to make up their own laws as they see fit. God’s Word, God’s law and not human rights or human dignity must be determinative. Human rights are prescriptive, telling us what we can or must do and how we must think in all things, limiting our freedom. The law of God says we can do all things, save for those things it forbids, extending freedom to us.
3. The myth of neutrality must be addressed. True believers will seek to persuade all men to submit to Christ and the worldview of the Bible. Political or social action cannot be separated from evangelism. It is to throw away opportunities
The agnostic says that he does not know for certain whether God exists or not, but is willing to examine the evidence. There is no such thing as a genuine agnostic. Still less are there any real atheists. The atheist says he genuinely does not believe there is a God and most certainly not the God of the Christian Scriptures. Despite this, the Bible itself says that all such people are liars. An atheist who says he is just looking at the facts as they are and cannot find God is lying through his teeth. The facts he is looking at are not neutral. The only conclusion to be drawn from any facts in this world is that the Lord, He is God. To all men we say, “Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3).
Everyone who looks at the world is looking at that which God has made. All things are inescapable proof that the God of Scripture is Creator and Lord.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.” (Psalm 19:1-4)
The fact that we communicate verbally one with another through the medium of language is further evidence that we are created beings. Facts are in no sense whatever neutral, but all declare the glory of God. The so-called ‛laws of nature’ are not neutral but inescapable proof that God is our Maker and that we are all answerable to Him. We cannot escape this by fooling ourselves into thinking He is not there. Those who say in their hearts that there is not God remain without excuse.
Of course, unbelievers we encounter continually assert they are neutral, impartial, objective, scientific, of modern outlook, honest seekers for the truth and much more. As yet, so they say, they have not uncovered any evidence for God. This is utter nonsense; they are nothing of the sort. That evidence is all around them staring them in the face, because they claim not to see it is no excuse. If they think their arguments let them off the hook to go their own way and do their own thing, they are gravely mistaken. They are not at liberty even to devise their own political system, or their own laws, without reference to God. Although they profess to be unbiased and impartial, they show their true colours by politics of tyranny and murder. Their pretended neutrality and objectivity must be exposed, challenged for what it is. The Scriptures tell us most clearly that all facts exist for God’s glory and are thus absolute proof of God’s creation and providence.
How come then that our secular humanist cannot see all this? The Bible tells us he is a blind fool, that he maliciously suppresses the obvious, the true nature of the facts he encounters. The reason behind this is that he hates God and Christ with a deep loathing. Whatever proofs you present him with, he will always deny that they can possibly refer to the God of the Bible because of the eradicable bias against God within his sinful nature. All men know God and although they hate Him, they cannot rid themselves of this knowledge within them. To do this would make them something less than human.
The unbeliever pretends that he could easily become a believer; all that is lacking is the evidence for God. Many professing Christians seeking to win over atheists and agnostics agree with this and spend their time trying to provide the ‛evidence’ that will convince them. They acknowledge the approach of the humanist is valid, but all they are doing is confirming them in their rebellion and unbelief. Despite Scripture teaching the contrary, they will progress to assuring the natural unregenerate man that did he want to do so, he could see the Kingdom of God: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3); they could understand the Christian faith: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14); they could receive the Word of God objectively: “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word” (John 8:43); and receive its truth: “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17). So it is argued in clear contradiction to Scripture that any fair-minded person, although unregenerate, assuming a non-partisan stance who examines the Christian faith is bound to submit to Scripture and the claims of Christ. However, he must choose, he must make the decision. This kind of evangelism and preaching of the Gospel then, has this at its heart. Man is sovereign in his choice, above God Himself. Yet the Bible teaches that no one can have a true view of the world or of himself without first receiving the light of God’s regenerating work and without this he will neither repent nor believe. The unbeliever is at war with the world around him and all that it says about God; he is at war with himself and with God.
It is solidly maintained that what men do in exercising their various capacities for knowledge and action cannot be thought of as being sinful. No one needsthe light of the Christian faith to have an understanding of the world and of himself. The revelation of Scripture and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit is not needed in order for anyone to understand his own nature. This is not what Scripture teaches. Every unbeliever is blind to the truth wherever it is found. Indeed, he cannot truly know himself unless he first knows God in whose image He is made. The unbeliever is not neutral but at war with God and consequently also with himself. He is not submitted to the Word of God nor can he be, because from the outset he behaves as though he himself is god, deciding for himself what is right and wrong, what is true and false. He thinks of himself as neutral, but is worse than biased. He is totally opposed to God. Yet, the unbeliever believes that the way he thinks is quite normal and it is we who are not thinking straight. His own reason is the final arbiter in the interpretation of all facts.
Someone who hates God in the way the Scriptures say we all do by nature is hardly likely to give God the benefit of the doubt, is hardly likely to be neutral and interpret reality in a way that forces him to believe in God. Rather, he will suppress the truth, distort it so that it fits into his own naturalistic view of things, determining the end from the beginning in God’s stead.
“I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10).
We must always first establish the presuppositions upon which someone is building their argument. The sinner will make himself the final reference point without questioning the validity of such an assertion. This determines all that he says and it must be challenged. The unregenerate man does not accept that he is made in the image of God. We cannot appeal to a fallen and rebellious intellect and moral nature as men themselves interpret them. They say they must judge the credibility and evidence of revelation. Yet they have ruled out its authority before they begin. We are inviting the sinner to accept just as much of God’s revelation as he determines palatable.
Can we not then find any common point where believer and unbeliever can both begin? There certainly is such a place. Everyone born on this earth has within the inborn knowledge that he is a creature of God and answerable to Him. Suppress this he may, but it remains there. Everyone talks and acts as though this is not so. On our side, then, is the fact man is created in the image of God and that His Law is imprinted on his heart and soul making him as a consequence always accessible to God. In order to be human at all, we are all in contact with the truth. This, despite the fact that we spend most of our effort in hiding this from ourselves. It is, however, a self-defeating task.
On our side is the reality of man having been created in the image of God with the law of God indelibly imprinted within him. As a result, he is always accessible to God. In order to be a man at all, he is already in contact with the truth. Instead of receiving that truth, he expends most of his effort at trying to eradicate it or simply to hide from it. This will always be self-frustrating. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:28).
Many evangelicals instead of appealing to the Scriptures, they accept the authority of the unregenerate human mind, believing that if they are persuaded of the truth they will accept the truth. The Bible cannot be preached, so they say, because no one accepts it.
Yet we cannot deny:
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)
Nor:
“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)
Or:
“The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:28-29)
They do not really believe in the power of the Word of God, despite what they say. Yet, it is quick and powerful because it is the Father’s voice. The unbeliever hears the voice but how can we make him really listen? Shall we do it by our own cleverness, relying on our own rhetorical gifts? Or shall we depend rather on the Spirit and grace of God?
“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 2:13)
There is no other way to be saved other than by submitting to God’s Word.
“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? ... So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:14 & 17)
We cannot do other than confront our rulers with the Scriptures. Anything less will not do. “I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed” (Psalm 119:46). It is the Word of God that tells men how they shall be saved and how they must live on earth. Satan has deluded many ‛Christians’ into not thinking of their fellow men as being dead in trespasses and sins but as alive and religiously neutral. This is nonsense and against Scripture (see Ephesians 2). We are urged to accommodate unregenerate scholarship and science by not mentioning the Word of God. By removing the Bible from the battle, we leave ourselves unarmed and weak. The soldier has had his sword removed from him.
There is no way we can argue for the truth by first moving away from it onto ‛neutral’ ground. It makes absolutely no sense or logic to move off the firm ground on which our reasoning is based and onto the shifting sand of that of our enemies. It is to hold up our hands in surrender before we begin. It is to lose from the outset. Our arguments rest firmly on Scripture or they are nothing and worthless. We cannot approach unbelievers on their ground of a denial of God and His Word and expect to come away with the victory. We shall fail and that ignominiously. Our goal must be repentance towards God and faith in Christ.
The illusory deception of the unbeliever is to give credence to the idea that it is possible to construct a peaceable and cohesive structure for society whilst at the same time setting aside the Word of God. All things must rest on the truth of Scripture. How can anyone think otherwise? There are no arguments for our position to be found outside the Scriptures. In accordance with his folly, the humanist, following Renaissance thinking, takes ‛the measure of man’ as his guide.
Those pushing ahead without regard for the Word of God will lead their people into totalitarianism or anarchy, destroying what they claim to be building. Everyone will do what is right in his own eyes instead of being taught by the Word of God until one way of thinking dominates to the exclusion of all others. This is precisely what is underway at the present time in the western world. No one is able to think straight any more. Where contingency rules rationality and the rules of logic disappear. Intelligent thought is possible only in the light of the full revelation of the truth God in Scripture. We cannot argue on the basis of practical compromise, but only resting on the Word of God. We undermine our case arguing on the same grounds as humanists.
Evangelicals regularly claim that when speaking to unbelievers, we must avoid arguments taken from the Bible on matter such as abortion, homosexuality, marriage, and so forth. In his book Abortion: the American Holocaust, Kent Kelly writes: “In speaking to the media, in public debate, as we write to the newspapers and lobby law makers, we need not to appeal to faith in the Word of God” (p.66). We beg to differ. If not faith in the word of God, then in what? Using the Bible is the only way to bring real authority to what we have to say. To do otherwise is to lay down our sword before the fight, to throw away our only really effective weapon before the battle. If men will not accept Scripture, it is because the god of this world has blinded their minds. The very thing to give them the sight they so urgently need is that of which we now would deprive them. They need to hear the Word of God; they need to have the Gospel preached to them.
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
History
History is on our side because everything happens as it does as part of God’s eternal plan and purpose, is predestined by Him and so cannot fail. This means history cannot be neutral but carries with it meaning derived from the eternal purpose God. There is wide disagreement among the philosophers and thinkers of our world as to what constitutes history and what are the ‛facts’ of history or if there are such things at all. What we as believers can say about history will line up with the revelatory teaching of Scripture. We must put God’s meaning on history. If we insist on doing anything else, what we end up with is not ‛neutral’ history, but a highly prejudiced humanistic interpretation that rules out any intervention by God in human affairs.
All history belongs to God because He brings all things to pass. Humanistic history is a misinterpretation of events. Omitting God from the picture does not leave us with neutral history, but with a humanistic, man-centred history. The Bible directs us to a very different view of history to that held by godless men.
All men know God (Romans 1). No one can be aware of himself and all that is around him without at the same time being conscious of his responsibility towards God with respect to how he behaves on earth, This takes place in time and so he will be aware of history and the passage of time and God’s predestinating plan lying behind it. This knowledge he suppresses (Romans 1:18) and in pursuit of this distorts history, is dishonest, lying to himself and to everyone else. To hand history over to the humanist to judge events for himself means that he will always come up with the wrong answers because of his dishonesty and false presuppositions. Nor can consensus in opinion and viewpoint yield up what is right or wrong. The truth we can find only in the Word of God. Scientists make a claim to ‛objectivity’ and a consequent dispassionate search for the truth.
Christ’s cause and ours in Him shall be vindicated.
His enemies shall be crushed, including those who today make proud boasts:
“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.” (Psalm 2:9-10)
All will bow the knee to Him, every government and government minister, everyone high or low will acknowledge Christ for who He is:
“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:10-11)
His kingdom shall triumph over all others:
“Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” (Psalm 2:6-8)
“The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”(Revelation 11:15)
Logic
The assumption made by the godless man is that he can arrive at true and correct conclusions by applying the rules of logic. He assumes that he is unaffected by sin and so the godless man goes astray in his thinking. We cannot ask the godless man to use his reason in order to judge the validity of Christian revelation unless we first ask him to renounce his own view that his own abilities are ultimate and submit to the Word of God. In asking him to look at Christian teaching with his own dispassionate reason, what we are really doing is a contradiction. We are asking him to assert his ultimacy and to deny it in the same breath.
All men have an axe to grind because of their sin and guilt before God. They will therefore use their reason not to find the truth but to suppress it in unrighteousness that they be not exposed for what they are, sinners before God. It is therefore quite logical to them that in making themselves ultimate, they must reject the Christian faith.
Every humanist is his own god and so can decide for himself what is right and wrong. He has no need of God to tell him this. The problem has, in fact, nothing to do with logic rather the more logical they are, the more likely they will be to reject Christ because of the initial assumptions on which they build. The lordship of Christ is an irrelevance to them because every man does that which is right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).
Many evangelicals seem to be ashamed to use the Bible in their discussions with unbelievers lest they are marked down as obscurantist or worse. To approach the world Bible in hand, we are told, is an exercise in futility. Can this really be the views of genuine Christian believers? Certainly, preaching the whole counsel of God is likely to cause enormous offence. We do not tone down our message in order to find acceptance with the enemies of God. Men will accept the arguments of Scripture when God in His grace and by His Holy Spirit removes the scales from their eyes and makes them to see. It is upon the power of the Holy Spirit we rely when we go forth Bible in hand and make known to all men everywhere that they are lost in sin and desperately need a Saviour. We cannot rely on the highly prejudiced reason of those whose minds have been blinded by the god of this world to judge things aright. Everyone is made in God’s image and so is accessible to the truth and the application of the truth by the Holy Spirit.
Abolish the Myth of Christian Impotence
The myth is circulated that God is not omnipotent, at least by implication. The world was completely lost in the Garden of Eden. However, God is sovereign, despite what may be said and all the promises of His victory shall be realized. All nations shall obey the Son (see Psalm 2 & 72:11). Man is not stronger than God not even in conversion. Once we grasp the truth that God is powerful and will fulfil all His promises, then we shall no longer feel like impotent underdogs in the world.
Two things will then happen:
1. We shall be unafraid to challenge the godlessness around us head-on.
2. At the same time, we shall experience the full power in biblical preaching. We must challenge unbelievers to forsake their supposed ultimacy as ‛gods’
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:7)
We can present the vision of how things could be, should be, and shall be.
3. Counterfeit Christianity will be shown up for the sham that it really is.
David W. Norris
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