Are U.S. Churches a Generation Away from being Ghost Towns?

You may recall my blog two weeks ago; Ken Ham, whom many of you know is the president of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum and the Noah Encounter, wrote another blockbuster book, along with polling- and statistics-minded Britt Beemer, called Already Gone. I’m a little late on this scene as well, since the book and the poll were written 10 years ago—but it’s even more relevant now, since church attendance is going down at every age level.  This survey in particular focuses on the youth scene. Let’s discuss the controversial results and conclusions he arrived at on some troubling aspects of teens and those who teach them.

He first points to a Barna 2006 survey (another great pollster) of 22,000 young adults who were involved in a church during their teen years—but they are now spiritually disengaged. They are no longer actively participating in the Christian faith in their 20s. Specifically, he found that 61% of them no longer go to church, don’t study their Bibles, give very little financially, do not volunteer, and do not order Christian media.  Only 20% of those who were spiritually active in high school are maintaining their commitment at the same level.  Further, Barna found that only 6% of those in 20s and 30s can be called “evangelical.” A pitifully how number.

Confirming this serious drop-off, the Baptist Convention discovered that more than 2/3 of young Protestant high-schoolers active in church later stopped attending at all for at least a year between the ages of 18-22.

Mr. Ham wanted to study only kids brought up in conservative and evangelical churches for this poll.  His co-author Beemer, with help, made 20,000 phone calls.  The final study was balanced according to population and gender, and included kids from public schools, Christian schools, and home-schooled.  He found that kids were abandoning the church proportionately, no matter the kind of schooling. Teens that went to Christian schools abandoned the church at the same high levels.

Here are some of the blockbuster results he found:

Kids don’t wait till college to “escape” the church: One survey took all those “dropouts” who are now in their 20s, who have been evangelicals, who attended church regularly but no longer do so.  So these dropout rates will add up to 100%.  Please do not misconstrue what I am saying here; we are not pointing out that all kids drop out.  We are simply trying to assess when all the drop-offs actually drop off.  Here are the pollster data: 5% of the dropouts do so before they finish elementary, 40% drop out in middle school and 44% of them drop out in high school.  Despite what you might think about corrupt college destroying their minds, you’re wrong:  89% of all evangelicals are already gone before college.  So there isn’t much belief for college to destroy; only 11% disappear during college.  The problem is only minimally helped by upholding young adults’ Christian views in college.  The main problem is earlier.

So, from the Baptists and the Barna studies, we lose 61-67% of our kids, who are detailed above. And they leave as soon as they are “bright” enough to figure what is going on.  So this is a serious, serious problem.  We need to pray about what’s really behind this horrible decline.  Looking at these young people as our church’s future, we have to conclude that our evangelical churches are only a generation removed from being “ghost towns.”  The erosion of the young continues into middle age and beyond later. (Looking at population of liberal church declines, they are getting there faster.)

Many parents who spend big bucks to send their child to a Christian college to avoid corruption are simply too late on the scene.  They should have done something radically different for their children in the 4^th or 5^th grade.

A precipitating cause of this sudden apathy among children might be a finding from the Beemer poll: He asked questions to determine those who “no longer believe that all of the stories in the Bible are true.”  He found that 40% first had doubts in middle school, 44% first had doubts in high school, and 11% first had doubts during college.  You can see that these are the exact same percentages as those who left church at each age group.  That tells us they tell their parents to just leave them alone on Sunday morning—and parents just agree. So it seems that we should be focusing on “what makes them turned off to the Bible,” not just asking a vaguer question “why they leave.” For sure, they are not bound by tradition, and parents don’t push them to do so..

• Beemer decided to explore Sunday School (which institution is in a huge decline as well), and found an even more shocking—even mind-blowing—result. He asked the 20-somethings if they often attended Sunday School when younger.  61% said “yes,” and 39% said “no.”  Comparing how the two groups felt about critical issues, he found the following shocking facts:
1. The 61% students who attended Sunday School were more likely NOT to believe in the truth of Bible stories;
2. The SS attenders were more likely to “doubt the Bible because it was written by men.” (It doesn’t help that few heroes are taught, and anti-masculinity is being subtly taught in schools).
3. The SS attenders were more likely to doubt the Bible because it was “not translated correctly.” (The many publishers producing different versions doesn’t help).
4. The SS attenders were more likely to defend that abortion should continue to be legal (!)—perhaps we can blame the fact that we haven’t achieved, in over 50 years, the necessary outrage that people—including potential mothers-- are murdering a tiny innocent person. We need to froth at the mouth to our teens that God has a millstone for such people (Matthew 18:6),  
5. SS attenders believed more than the non-SSrs in many of the evolution ideas; the earth is old, dinosaurs were before men, animals changed from one kind to another.
6. The SS attenders were more likely to defend premarital sex (48% vs 41% of non-SSers).
7. The SS attenders were more likely to view the church as hypocritical.
8. 25% of those who attended Sunday School believed that “God used evolution to create human beings;” but only 19% of that false belief is shared by non-SSers.
9. For the question “Do you feel the Church is relevant to your needs today?” 46% of SS attenders said “no,” but only 40% of non-SSers felt the same rejection.

What is happening here?  Is the corrupting of the minds that I alluded to earlier caused by Sunday School teachers?  Upon further study, the answer is most likely No.  Remember, these are kids in conservative churches.  Other data Beemer shared do NOT show their teachers or pastors teaching corrupt Gospel. So this alarming data still cries for an answer.  The clear fact here is that Sunday School really had no impact, apparently, on what children believed in critical moral areas.  It didn’t help them develop a Christian worldview.  Somehow it had a detrimental impact.

Was the problem HOW they were taught? Such as, did the teachers unintentionally teach Bible stories as fables? Or did the other kids in Sunday School, or their parents’ hypocrisy or pressure trigger the kids’ rebellion, so they were worse off than if they had never heard the Bible, and had to think it out on their own?

The problem could have been simply the overwhelming secular system, with its 30-hours of teaching a week (vs. 30 minutes of teaching the Bible in Sunday School). But if that were the cause, both Sunday School and non-Sunday School would have, at worst, similar results.  The problem is that SS attenders were worse. Perhaps the SS teens resented the time spent, if the arents showed no proof of Christianity.

Mr. Ham and Mr. Beemer considered what to do about this grave problem.

He asks: Should we eradicate Sunday School?  He does say that Deuteronomy 6:6-9 insist that fathers and mothers teach their children the Gospel:

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they
shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.  

 Likewise Ephesians 6:4:

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

 It helps if both parents live a different lifestyle than their secular friends.

He also acknowledges that Sunday School is not a long tradition in the church; it only dates from the 1700s.  Finally, he feels that Sunday School allows parents to shrug off their responsibilities as the primary teachers of the children.

Nevertheless, he can’t bring himself to the radical step to eradicate Sunday School.  He proposes a second idea:

Shall we renovate Sunday School? He says Yes, by, among other things, teaching more apologetics.  Apologetics is defending every teaching of the Bible as the Word of God.  Now here’s my thought:  Aren’t we supposed to be teaching the Bible to these elementary, or middle schoolers, before they are overwhelmed by their secular schools’ doctrines?  But you may ask, how can we teach apologetics, a conceptual and difficult process, to those so young?  And, keep in mind, few in the adult teachers have this capability.  Also, renovation has already been tried a thousand other ways, but we still get the distressing results above.  I personally don’t see this idea turning things radically around like we need.

Then he writes about how some of those who left church might return if they have children of their own.  Here is his quote about those who might return when they have children.  But what I see in this statement is that he might have stumbled upon possibly the root problem for these “turned off” kids instead.

“What they object to, however, is hypocrisy, legalism, and self-righteousness.  The Bible is relevant to them, but the church is not.  This group needs to be convinced that Christians in the church are living by God’s truth, and are living in a way that is relevant to their lives.”

 So let’s run with using this quote as maybe why kids are turned off.  Let’s consider each charge individually.  Hypocrisy is defined as living in a different way than your doctrine. Elementary kids pay attention to what their parents say; so when their parents run down the pastor’s salary, or the Sunday School teacher’s lazy lifestyle, they pick that information up.  Then when that teacher or that pastor preaches about how they should live a holier life, when the child sees how they live (per their parents), the child becomes familiar with hypocrisy.  The kids then are not interested in “holier” as is represented here.

Legalism is defined as judging people based on surface criteria.  Let’s say mom is fundamental enough to send her kids to Sunday School.  Mom also happens to mention about how some teenage girl dresses like a slut in church.  Her daughter knows that girl, and knows how the girl took time to help her at her homework once, or how she has a perpetually friendly personality (and how she wishes she had one too).  The daughter becomes familiar with legalism from her mother.

Self-righteousness shows in too many families.  A lot of kids get the general feeling that since their parents have more money, the parents feel that God must love them and is rewarding them with wealth for being good parents, having sent them to Sunday School and all.  But the kids know how their parents ignore them when they have real needs, and don’t have time for them—work gets in the way. Getting more money, to them, means work and cash are placed higher than the kids.  Both parents work, to achieve an acceptable lifestyle. The parents’ view of God is wrong, they conclude, so Christianity must have deeper flaws when it makes their parents like that.

Brothers and sisters, what do we learn from this?  For one thing, speak carefully about other people when your kids are around.  Avoid picking on a child or adult that you know little about.  Avoid speaking critically about other people, knowing that we each have sins of our own to wrestle with.  Never sacrifice your kids, putting work or money on a higher plane.  And certainly avoid thinking that God’s love for you can be measured by how much money you have. Explain to kids that money is simply a gift from God, and we seek His approval other ways instead. Sadly, as Jesus pointed out, many rich people are living the best life that will be available to them—they will go to hell when they die.  Many poor people will have an eternity in heaven. So riches are not a measure of God’s approval.

Maybe this idea of renovating the parents is not the solution that will work. We’re asking parents to sacrifice and change habits and somehow focus on what their child really needs—is that asking too much? Jesus taught sacrifice.

I wish the Sunday School problem could be solved by making an astounding curriculum.  But the truth is, Satan is temporarily the god of the earth, and targets the young children to win them over to the world and never live for God.  Parents should make it the FIRST desire of their heart to prepare their kids to face up to all of Satan’s tricks, by reading and learning His Word.  Don’t forget, when Jesus was tempted, He answered Satan with Scripture.

The book covers a lot of other topics, but this one is the one that touches my heart.  This is not meant to be a summary of the book, but just about certain eye-popping data and thoughts around it.

Acknowledgement:  Already Gone, by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer.

 

Initial Salvation Easy, but Final Salvation Not So Easy

 Scripture contains seemingly contradictory claims about receiving eternal life. Some of its verses-- those we’re usually more familiar with--say eternal life is possessed right now to those born again. Such as John 5:24: 

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

I John 5:13 agrees:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

As these Scriptures suggest, all you need is simple belief in Jesus as God, and believe what He said, and you have eternal life immediately. We will call this "easier" definition of gaining eternal life Initial Salvation.  A theology called Calvinism teaches that that's all there is, on your efforts, to obtain salvation.  God does the rest through you and for you.

But there are other less-well-known Scriptures that say that actual receipt of eternal life is not a "have now," but delayed until our life’s end—and what we have now is just the hope, or expectation of eternal life. Such as Titus 3:6-7 (New King James):

…whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Or Jude 21:

Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life

Note what “the hope of” and “bring you to” will change things The probable solution to this apparent contradiction is that salvation has two parts, the initial salvation, and the final salvation.  The former we discussed previously.  Believe. The latter, I'm convinced, is when we show the world, by abiding in Christ to become more godly, in His likeness, that we stay saved. But it's possible to reject Jesus' directions.  So the hope of eternal life can be interrupted, or even snuffed out, by continuing in worldly or ungodly behavior.

Calvin did not believe that.  He said that the "elect" could not lose their salvation.  But that begs the question, "how do we know if we are one of the elect?"

Initial salvation is what's most often evangelized; but anything on the way to final salvation is the one we don’t hear about too much. The Scripture points out, as you will see below, that entering heaven is only for those who die in a righteous state.  This state is not automatic.  This means we must intentionally abide in Christ, and are reliably obedient to His commands since initial salvation. If we don't do that, it is possible to lose initial salvation--but it is also possible to regain it by sincere repentance and renewing a desire to stay close to God in obedient thought and action.

It helps to know, what really is "belief?"

Just below is John 3:16, in the Pure Word translation, which attempts to give an exact definition of every word--even though it paralyzes the flow of Scripture. Note what it says about belief:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...in order that whoever is continuously by his choice Committing for the Result and Purpose of Him, should not perish, but definitely should, by his choice, be Continuously having eternal life.  Note: Committing for the Result and Purpose of Him suggests our intention in life is to obey the purposes of Christ.

Thus, belief, as properly defined, means submission to His commands over our own plans, and a continuing loving relationship with Our Lord.  You might think that submitting to anybody is not a plan for a happier life, but Jesus is not just anybody. He is to be trusted, or we have not belief. The Holy Spirit, and the results, will teach you otherwise. Doing that means there will be fruits in our lives, which also happens to be a requirement if we want to avoid hell.  John 15:5-6 confirms that, when we define "abide" as having an intentional relationship to stick with Him. Obeying Him keeps guilt or sin from keeping us separated:

 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

Abiding is not passive. This is the aspect of salvation that’s hard for many people to swallow, because it suggests that to be truly saved from hell, it's not so easy as an immediate go-to-heaven card; we have to go from merely belief as a mental assent—onward to radical changes in behavior and thought being necessary. This much-ignored life-journey to final salvation is called “conditional security.” Final salvation is conditioned on our behavior, on works, after we're initially saved.

Since you’ll have a harder time accepting the idea of required works of righteousness, or the conditional security of Final Salvation, I have lots more verses as proof for you to ponder, both here and later.

• Romans 2:5b-7 ...the righteous judgment of God, ⁶ who will give to each person according to what he has done. 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life

• Galatians 6:8b-9 the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

• I Timothy 6:19: storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life

"Laying hold" suggests striving, or works—as do the others. This is more evident in Timothy's verse below, where we find the phrase "fight the good fight," which suggests the striving.

 (I am not denying the grace of God in salvation, nor the work of the Holy Spirit to help us defeat our worldly impulses.)

• I Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 

• Romans 13:11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. This is spoken to believers in Rome.

• Mark 10:30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life

Note that several of these verses say gaining eternal life is future, not now.

But since life is a mixture of sin and good works, we feel uncertain about whether our sin will keep us out of heaven.

And don’t we hate uncertainty.

We'd rather have an easy formula, a one-off kind of deal, like just believing in the initial salvation, and then we're done.  So obviously Calvinism, which guarantees that initial salvation=final salvation, is popular.

But is God a God of uncertainty?  Many people decide that's not possibly a part of His character.  But who are we to make up God?  We must seek Scripture, always, for revelation of His character traits.

With this “new” (actually, old) idea of true salvation being conditioned on our behaviors after our expression of faith, we have a different answer to the question: is it possible for anyone who has accepted Christ (has “initial salvation”) to LOSE IT between initial and final salvation? Calvin, whom people follow (whether they know his background or not) believe the answer is NO, based partly on the 5th point of Calvin's famous TULIP, the letter "P": Perseverance of the Saints. As the Westminster Confession (now remember, this is not the Bible) declares (Chapter 17, para.1): “They whom God hath accepted in his Beloved…can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.” They further insist that such does not depend upon our own free will but “upon the immutability of the decree of election.”

Thus, once we accept Christ, they believe, we must have been one of the elect, and we're "locked in" to eternal life.  We have Unconditional security. God will not let us fall away from salvation, they say. This belief system has been popularly called, “once saved, always saved” (OSAS). You don't need to worry about works.  Thinking about works shows your uncertainty of faith. You must do something about THAT.  Etc, etc, all of this disproven by lots of Scripture like we just touched on above.

Most popular evangelists adhere to this Calvinistic belief system.  When I search Google, it vastly outnumbers any other argument.  But it is unscriptural.

We believe Scripture (like those cited above) confirms, in part, an opposite belief system, called Arminianism, involving uncertainty. Some of their important beliefs vs Calvinism are:

• Christ's atonement (paying the price for our sins at crucifixion) was made on behalf of All people--vs Calvin, who insisted that Christ's atonement was Limited (the letter "L" in TULIP). Christ died only for those God had arbitrarily picked as the ones who would be saved.  Note my word "arbitrarily:" If our works have anything to do with God's choice as to who is in "the elect," it would Violate Calvinism, which clings to the idea that our works of righteousness count Nothing. Calvinism also stresses the Total Depravity of Man (the letter “T” in TULIP), so no one ever seeks God--Man is unable to, they say.  Since Man never reaches to God, God chooses certain people He would regenerate, and enlighten them to the real Gospel.  

But to those God did not pick as "elect": God is effectively saying, You're on the way to hell.  Could God pick your eternal spot as hell before you were born?  Calvin says so.  But, I say No way.  I believe Calvin's theory of limited atonement is blasphemy.  When it comes to an important subject as salvation, I don't think the word "arbitrary" fits.  Arminius wins on this point, since there are many Scriptures that say Christ died for all men.

Another point of Arminianism:

• God allows his grace to be resisted (i.e., we have free will) by those who freely reject Christ--vs. Calvin, who insists on the letter "I"--Irresistible grace.  Which says, for those whom God has picked, the Holy Spirit, they say, will draw us irrevocably to Christ.

And now, to the most important point of Jacob Arminius:

• Believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace (becoming Apostate, losing salvation) through persistent, unrepented sin.

It is the last bulleted point that’s the biggest bone of contention to Calvinists. Arminianism believes it’s possible to lose eternal life between initial salvation and final salvation. Calvinists, you remember, believe that when you're initially saved, you're locked in.  So which theology is correct—Calvinism or Arminianism?  As Scriptural verses above show, the answer is Arminianism--we need to lean on Him to help us fight sin and worldliness and obey His commands and show fruit to be assured of heaven.  We must intentionally abide with Him; i.e., have a relationship with Him.  Final salvation takes a striving, a laying ahold, of submitting to God's will.  That's what those verses clearly say.  Don't rely on commentators, who are expert at twisting the Word into a pretzel to confirm their chosen theology.

IF God wants you to believe eternal life is sure and certain for believers, if Initial Salvation is all there is, and heaven is guaranteed (such as believed by Calvinists)--then Scripture would be 100% full of secure statements for the believer and have no listing of conditional behavior. But that means we have to wave away and ignore all the Scriptures above (and more below) about dire results for evil behavior. Are we to believe that all of Scriptural conditional statements are lies? We would also have to accept glaring contradictions in Scripture that we began this discussion with, right? No way. The simple solution is, salvation has two aspects: Initial and Final. And you could lose it in between. Or then maybe regain it. The "irresistible" and the "perseverance" take away your free will.  The Holy Spirit will not strong-arm you into heaven.  True, there are all kinds of things which cannot take us out of God's hand--but we can jump out of His hand if we want.  Arminianism requires real effort to attain a  holy life to achieve heaven. This is totally backed up by Scripture, as we saw many times above. As Hebrews 12:14 says:

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord

Here are more verses that are seemingly "in contrast" to one another.  They also have one explanation: that salvation Must be in two parts, to avoid claiming that God's Word contains contradictions.

Luke 7:50:

Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Versus Matthew 10:22, spoken to already-saved disciples:

And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved

The only way to reconcile the above two Scripture is if the first verse supports Initial salvation, and the second verse supports Final salvation.

I John 4:4 sounds like we’re already overcomers, so there is no stopping us, it’s all done by Jesus:

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 

But then there’s Rev. 2:10b-11, which seems to show that WE have to strive at overcoming the world to get there in the future:

Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”’

Why does God do this, saying, "you're saved," then saying, "you have to overcome to be saved?" Perhaps, as Romans 6:11 seems to interpret, there is value in psychologically "reckoning" ourselves as overcomers--this helps us become overcomers.

Same contrast in verses about sonship: Here’s a verse that says we are sons now: Galatians 3:26

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus

But here’s some verses that say “wait, there’s some conditions here, some things you do before you can finally be a son:” Rev. 21:7,8

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. 8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death

The "overcomers" are those who have not committed the terrible sins listed in verse 8; or if they did so, they sincerely repented. 

And here’s just a few more verses which also condition eternal life: Hebrews 3:14

For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end

Hebrews 5:9

And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him

The word “obey” is in what Greek grammar calls “continuous sense.”  You’ve got to keep on obeying.

This is all New King James translation. I don’t follow other translations that would weaken the important nuances of these verses.

These next verses have hyperbole to make a point that we should be willing to sacrifice anything to avoid sin and to obtain Christ.  Mark 9:43-44, 47:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched— 44 ‘where Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.’ 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out….

Luke 13:23-24 says something that most people just glide over:

Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?”
And He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

How can we feel eternally secure, when Scripture says we could:

Wander off, I Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows…

Turn back: John 6:66

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

Fall away Luke 8:13

But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away

And how could a God who doesn’t want anyone to perish, as II Peter 3:9 shows....

The Lord is not slack… not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

And how could God, whose will is perfect in its attainment, how could He allow people’s faith to be shipwrecked? I Tim 1:19

having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck

The answer is, only by placing conditions on our security.

Now you can’t be shipwrecked unless you were first on the ship! (The ship is an allegory for salvation). He simply gave us the free will to turn aside from the faith--and thus lose the salvation we obtained.

Consider how some Christians are likened to a salt that has lost its saltiness, Matthew 5:13

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out, 

Some Christians are compared to virgins (in Matthew 25:1-13) whose lamps run out of oil (note: they possessed the Holy Spirit--the oil in the lamp, but ran out of it)—so they are unprepared, not looking forward for His return--their lives are focused on the world. And what do they hear Jesus say? As verse 12 sadly points out, “I do not know you.”  This does not mean, "I never knew you."  The groom would have known the bridesmaids.  He's saying, "I knew you, but your love has changed so much, it's like I don't know you now."

Calvinist teachers want us to be relaxed, less anxiety-prone. They tell us, “you’re assured, just love God; good works will flow out of thankfulness.” If good works are so automatic, why are so many verses comparing the Christian life to being:

• A soldier in a battle (II Timothy 2:3,4): You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier 

• A wrestler, Ephesians 6:12a For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age

• Willing to shed blood, as it were, to defeat sin: Hebrews 12:4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin

• Willing to even leave our families (see my blog on "Defeating the Taliban"), Matthew 19:29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. 

• A slave to God: Romans 6:22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life

When the rich young ruler popped the big question about obtaining eternal life to Jesus (Luke 18), what did He do? Did Jesus want to make it easy to understand, to win him? Did He tell him it’s just faith in Him, nothing else? NO! As Luke 18:18-23 records, He gave him a rough time defining the word “good,” then He gave him a rough time on how he should be saved, testing him by running through some of the 10 commandments first, then gives him an almost impossible restriction to cease his secret focus on materialism.

Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”21 And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” 22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 23 But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. 

Does Jesus, at the point of seeing his sorrow and wrong decision, beg him to reconsider, urge him, tell him how much he could lose? Does He water down his tough final restriction? NO! He is done speaking to him. His words in vv. 24,25:

And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

These ideas might shock you about God (Jesus is God). But don’t, whatever you do, reject them outright, dismissing them that “I’m taking verses out of context,” etc etc. Considering the volume of verses above, that cannot be the case.  There are things about God here that we should explore, take a fresh unbiased look at ALL of His Word. Attaining and keeping eternal life might not be as we were taught!

Acknowledgement to Brother Dan Corner, preacher, writer, and watchman on the wall, for his book,

The Believer's Conditional Security 

 

 

Christian Colleges are Compromised

 I am reviewing a book by Ken Ham and partner, published eight years ago, called Already Compromised, with some eye-opening poll results. Mr. Ham’s intent was to survey 200 different Christian colleges, interviewing the president, the vice president, the head of the science department, and the head of the religion departmenrtner—800 people.  But many ducked out or were impossible to reach, so his results were for 312 people. Over 2/3 of the people were from schools associated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, colleges that require all of their professors to sign a personal statement of faith.  The other 89 respondents were from schools that were religiously affiliated through an association with a religious denomination.  The responses were pretty much the same for both groups.

What Mr. Ham found, was, these professors and administrators did not have enough spine to uphold God’s Word, so that they were unclear or compromising in their answers.  They seemed to have “one foot in the door” of the secular world’s wrong and sinful answers to these questions.  Let me give you an example of what I mean:  To the question “Do you believe in the inspiration of Scripture?”  98% said “Yes.”  Wonderful.  Until you think, “What watered-down meaning could “inspiration” have?  “I was painting under the inspiration of Michelangelo.”  So that’s a poor word choice.  So they also asked, “Do you believe in the inerrancy” or “in the infallibility of Scripture.”  Ah-ha—now only 74% to 81% agree.

Of course, the professor/administrator might be counted as one of the 74-81%, and yet argue, “I believe in the inerrancy of the original manuscripts,” which, of course, we don’t have.  They might assume the process of making copy upon copy through the centuries would necessarily lead to errors and end the inerrancy.  Well, they haven’t read the latest results from the Dead Sea Scrolls, where some of the documents were made around 100 AD (a jump-back of many centuries from oldest copies we had until then)—so these are incredibly close to the original manuscripts.  When compared to the formerly oldest manuscripts that we then had, they found that any differences when comparing Biblical texts, even centuries apart, were minor and did not affect even one doctrinal point of doctrine or history.  None of the texts we had before, challenges any archeological find or historical data. This proves one thing:  Men did a great job of copying—perhaps their respect for God, plus the frequent "rest times" supervisors required of them, did it--or, perhaps God inspired them to the necessary rigor.

So, based on the 74% who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture, we know already that 26%, or ¼ of these college professors and administrators were ready to waffle on the Bible’s doctrines.  More could waffle when they question current manuscripts.  We found the same kind of silliness in answers shows up in the following question: “Do you believe the Genesis account of creation as written?” 90% said “yes.”  Wonderful.  But then a couple questions were asked about the details of Genesis.  Now before I get to them, I should say, if you question the Book of Origins, you open the door to questioning anything you don’t like about the Bible, and you also open the door to secular and sinful belief systems.  Satan has done a great job convincing most of mankind about evolution (which takes more faith than Creation).  But if mankind believes we just evolved from primates, then we can dismiss God from our lives.  But if we are Created in the Image of God, as Scripture says, then we are accountable to Him for our actions—and what the Bible says about hell for us and abiding in Jesus to escape hell—are true.  So you see how important it is to believe in Genesis.  Besides, Jesus confirms the truth of all the stories in Genesis that He commented on; so if you disbelieve them, you are in effect calling Jesus a liar—a dangerous space to be in.

This first detail question comes from the 6 days of creation, in Genesis 1:5ff:  Scripture records each of these creations and ended with “so the evening and the morning were the first day” and “so the evening and the morning were the second day,” and so on.  Why does God point out “evening” and “morning?”  Simple--so we would get the distinct impression that Creation was done in six 24-hour days.  In Hermeneutics, we are told to take the Bible literally, whenever possible.  Well, here’s an easy one:  When it says “evening” and “morning,” does that mean one 24-hour day?  Of course.  We don’t have any trouble with “day” anywhere else in the Bible.  It’s easy to say, the Day of the Lord doesn’t mean one 24-hour day, but 99% of uses of the word “day” are simply speaking of 24-hour periods.  So why do we have so much trouble with “day” being controversial in Genesis 1?  It seems that God must have thought, in thinking about the wording of Genesis, “21^st century people are trying to escape accountability, so I’ll have to accentuate the point of what “day” means by saying “evening” and “morning.””  Well, these professors and administrators didn’t get the message.  So, as we said, “Do you believe the Genesis account of creation as written?” 90% said “yes."  BUT to the question “Do you believe God created the earth in six 24-hour days?”  less than 60% said “yes.”   These are Christian colleges!  40% don’t believe in a literal hermeneutic translation of the Bible. They’ve opened up to be suckered in on evolution.

Well, they might argue by quoting the Gap theory.  They might say, "well, in Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth was in the distant past, which creation included angels; but the angels fell, and must’ve created a mess, because in Genesis 1:2 it says “The earth was without form, and void…and the Hebrew words “without form and void” suggests that the earth was ruined and disorderly.  Well, they would then assume that that couldn’t have been the way God created it, which He created in perfection.  So God created the earth itself (no men yet) in the distant past, not in 24 hours; then a mess, then He started over by creating light on the first day of re-creation, etc."  That gives them room to believe in a billion-year-old earth AND six 24-hour days.  The real problem is, there’s no proof for it in archeology--the impressive effects of the Flood dominate all archeology, if anyone even believed in it.

Every single lecture I’ve heard on the Gap theory, they “fill in” the Gap by saying the Gap was millions of years, and that’s when dinosaurs ruled, and they died, and left their bones, and that’s why their bones seem millions of years old.  (And they might throw in the evolution cycle in the Gap, too.)  The problem with these “Gap fill-ins” is, this assumes death happened before Adam, who came along later, and then sinned—BUT death couldn’t have been in the picture until after Adam sinned—as Scripture points out when it contrasts him to Jesus--Adam brought death, Jesus brought life (Romans 5, I Corinthians 15).  So it seems to me that these interviewees are swayed against Scripture by secular dates for the world, the “radiocarbon” method, and so on. But those methods have a record of inaccuracy.  And, besides, couldn’t God have created the earth with age built in?  Or, couldn’t a world-wide Flood involve the kind of pressure to create coal and oil deposits?  My point is, they were desperate to bring "modern science" into their views, which must mean they choose secular over Bible's inerrancy.  These professors  would pass this along to the students.

Oh, yes, the Flood.  Secular theorists make fun of Noah’s Flood.  But did you know that there are oral stories about a flood in every society in the world?  And don’t anthropologists say that if there is a similar story everywhere, then the story has a basis in fact--that the Flood happened everywhere. Well, the Christian professors and administrators haven’t heard that, I guess.  They’re spending too much time listening to the secular views here, too.  To the question, “Do you believe in the flood of Noah’s day?”  91% say “yes.”  Wonderful. BUT when asked “Do you believe the flood was worldwide, local, or nonliteral (i.e., a fable), only 58% said it was worldwide!  Again, 42% don’t believe their Bible, since Genesis 7:19-21 says:

And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰ ….and the mountains were covered. ²¹ And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.

When you read this, these 42% have no excuse for ducking out of the Bible; these verses flat-out means that 42% don’t believe the Bible. Like I said, if they bend the knee to the satanic secularist in Genesis, they’ll listen to them first anywhere else it’s important.  If the Flood was just local, then God’s purpose…destroying every living person on earth (except Noah and family) would be frustrated.  As Genesis 6:7 says:

 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

 The problem here is much bigger than you might first imagine.  First, by not believing Genesis 7:19 about the Flood being worldwide, they are forced not to believe Genesis 6:7 either.  Making God out to be a liar twice—again, a dangerous place to be.  But even bigger is, this is a slander on God’s character.  They refuse to believe that God would kill every person on earth (except 8 people).  But the Bible explains God’s reason, which they evidently also don’t believe, in Genesis 6:5-6:

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

This means that God will judge unrepentant sin harshly.  We don’t appreciate how much He hates sin, how holy He is.  We don’t appreciate how much we sin, how little we even think about it, or how much it offends God.  Or how much of a price Jesus paid, or how bad hell is, or how much we’re saved from.  We can’t thank God enough until we spend some time thinking on these things.  But distorting God’s Word, avoiding some of it, and then teaching only part of God’s character, is a terrible sin too. 

We should be very careful to believe and obey what His Word clearly says, and that responsibility goes especially for teachers of His Word.

 Ken Ham believes the term “newspeak,” from Orwell’s classic 1984, is being replicated in today’s colleges.  Words mean different things to different people.  When they asked the professors/administrators “What does your institution teach about the Bible?” only 35% gave a straight answer, “It is true” (but do they mean every word is Literally true? Hmm.)  But 23% said “it is a book of guidelines,” which seems to suggest that one could take it or leave it without reprisal (thus making Man the judge of God). And 9% said “we teach it, then dissect it,” which (considering what “dissect” really means) strongly suggests some negative comparisons would be taught, thus questioning God's commands—again, making Man the judge of what doctrines are good, what doctrines are bad. Students need to avoid 32% of their professors, when you put those numbers together.

Another surprising poll result was found by comparing the heads of the religion departments and the heads of the science departments.  Take a gander at the results below:

Question: “Do you believe the Flood was worldwide, local, or nonliteral?”  Only 57% of the religion department heads believed it was worldwide.  And 12% believed it was “nonliteral,” or a fable. Like Jack and the Beanstalk.  These folks ought to pray about their eternal futures. But the poll questions below is where the real surprises come in:

Question: “Do you believe in God creating the earth in six 24-hour days?”  Only 57% of the religion departments said “Yes,” BUT 71% of the science department heads said “yes.”

Question: “Would you consider yourself a young-earth, or old-earth Christian?”  Keep in mind that if Creation were done in six, 24-hour days, you’re a young-earth fan. The religion department said “old-earth” 78% of the time, unfortunately, but the science department were less enthusiastic about this theory. They said “old-earth only 35% of the time!

What I think we’re getting about this data is, the science department keeps track of the incredible detail in the DNA, and how generations of species all stay within their families, and how the universe is finite, and how the earth is in a perfect environment in 34 different ways, just to support Man; and they have more often seen that Darwin’s theories are all sketchy.  The religion department probably gets a lot of criticism for supporting the Bible, and have wavered in their support even more.  Maybe they don’t know the latest discoveries of science, which favor Creation.

I need to mention that Mr. Ham does not mince words on exposing professors that garble on Scripture, pointing fingers, and naming names, of 12 especially guilty men, and their big-name colleges, in the Appendix.  He also has high praise for one college, in West Virginia, no less, that gets it.  And he names all the colleges that participated in the survey in a website as well.  You Christian parents--you want to read that before you begin supporting your son or daughter in a "Christian" college.

Now let’s give Ham’s summary quote—including other data that I haven’t covered:

 ....If you send your students to a Christian college or institution, three out of four times in school they will likely be in front of a teacher who has a degraded view and interpretation of Scripture…Like it or not, we are at war—a war of worldviews… What most families are not aware of, however, is the depths to which these secular influences have infiltrated Christian institutions.”

The future looks even bleaker.  With his question, “Do you believe the Flood was worldwide, local, or non-literal?” the Presidents of the institutions said “worldwide” 87% of the time; but the Vice President (the future president, in many cases) agreed only 43% of the time!  My question is, where are they getting these vice presidents from? Are they not asking penetrating interviewer questions? Let’s assume the VP is younger.  Does this mean younger people are all more skeptical, or that they’re hiring VPs now from secular schools, or that seminaries have gone corrupt over the years? None of these possibilities are good signs.

Since the VP is usually behind the hiring of faculty, a confused VP cannot be counted on to hire those who believe in the Scripture being God’s Word.

Mr. Ham’s book here is a great read.  My suggestion to parents of college-bound kids—Train your child in Scripture yourself, as early as possible!  And live a godly life with prayer and Bible reading frequently.  Many Christian colleges won’t do the job of supporting a truly Christian worldview.  They’re infected with secular-thinking professors and administrators.

Acknowledgement:  Ken Ham and Greg Hall, Already Compromised.  Master Books, 2011.