POKER AND A FALSE GOSPEL

There 's a tern used by poker players (so I'm told) called a "tell." For the uninitiated, a tell is a change in a player's behavior or demeanor that is claimed by some to give clues to that player's assessment of their hand. What's psychologically fascinating about a tell is that the player commits the tell unconsciously; he has no idea that what he's doing is communicating to his opponents the contents of the cards upon which he's gazing. 

There's a tell by which you can spot a proud person.Whenever he  does something that isn't easy, he swells with pride. It wasn't easy for him to do his first job interview. But when he's done, he's proud about the fact that he managed to do it well. He was proud because he did something that wasn't easy. He can't wait to tell you how great he performed many, many times. 

That's the way it is with a false gospel. There's a tell that goes along with it. Here's an example of a false gospel, brought to you by an organization that promotes this "gospel:" "Salvation is certainly free, but, at the same time, it costs us everything. Salvation is a free gift from God to those who believe, but discipleship and obedience are the response that will no doubt occur when one truly comes to Christ in faith." (The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)

With a twist of the English language, the BGEA giveth and the BGEA taketh away by saying, "Salvation is certainly free, but, at the same time, it costs us everything." The logical fallacy is evident on its face, and all the more so when we leave out parts of the sentence: "Salvation is certainly free . . . but at the same time, it costs everything." Wait a minute! "It's free but at the same time, it costs?" That would be like my saying, "This BMW is absolutely free. But it'll cost you your house, your savings account, your checking account, and your pension fund. Everything."

Where does this idea come from, this idea that we're saved by faith but that salvation will cost you everything? One of the places it comes from is from those who do what Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to do in 1937 by proposing the packing of the Supreme Court to get his New Deal proposals approved. There are those who pack the word "faith" and expand it to mean "a lifetime of good works." The packers are legion,but some famous names are James Montgomery Boice, John  MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, and Wayne Grudem who all say that everlasting life is received by faith alone, apart from works. But then . . . hold on ....

But then they define faith in such a way as to include or guarantee a lifetime of good works, cramming it into "faith."They put it this way: "We are to die to ourselves as we change into the likeness of Christ. Where easy believism fails is its lack of recognition that a person with faith in Jesus will lead a progressively changed life."

It's easy to see how such an earned salvation can lead to an overweening and insufferable pride. "I did it! I changed! I gave up smoking! I quit watching R rated movies! I'm now singing in the church choir!" But read Romans 3:26-27--. . . [S]o that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.Where then is boasting? It has been excluded. By what kind of law ("principle")? Of works? No, but by a law ("principle") of faith."

Notice how they slam "faith alone in Christ alone" by calling it "easy believism.' It's a derogatory term that flies in the face of the Bible which clearly says faith, believing, IS easy. It never presents faith as hard to do; it presents faith as the ONLY thing to do. 

Is taking a sip of water easy? Is eating a piece of bread easy? Is looking easy? Is receiving a gift easy? These are all pictures of faith found in the Bible: Is. 45:22; John 3; John 1:12; John 6:51; John 7:37; John 4; Revelation 22:17. This is precisely where II Cor. 11:3 enters the playing field: " But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his trickery, your minds will be led astray from the SIMPLICITY and pure devotion to Christ.Yes, faith is easy as the Bible says.

They call faith alone "easy believism." But, as one pastor asked, "What is 'hard believism?" Good question.

The fact is that even within Christianity, the majority don't believe that salvation is without cost. Yet, the Bible signs off with God's final invitation to man to come and do something easy: ". . . come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost."

THE EMORY UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR AND THE BLIND GIRL

 An English professor at Emory University sits in his campus office having a discussion with a blind female student. He wants to discuss the agitation on the campus at the coming of a conservative speaker who will address those students who want to hear what he has to say. The visiting speaker is one of those we might characterize as a comet--he's having his short-lived run of fame and then he'll  disappear into celebrity oblivion. 

The professor has noted that there's going to be an assemblage of dissenters who've already gone to the president of the prestigious university to make their heated demands that the school disinvite a person who'll spread "hate"  on their  campus. They, of course, will be demonstrating against him if he's not disinvited. (We've seen some of these agitators turn violent to make sure that if such a speaker comes and makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, they'll shout at him, chant at him, and heckle him until he gives up and has to leave the campus under guard. (It's called "the heckler's veto.")

The professor is mystified: Why are those students so outraged? He wants to hear the young lady's viewpoint by answering his question, "Why are they so upset?" She, being "a millennial," knows why, although the learned professor doesn't. She answers him in one sentence.

She says: "Because everyone deserves to be happy," meaning that the person's lecture will make some students unhappy and feel unsafe and shouldn't be allowed because "everyone has a right to be happy." In fact, just his very presence on campus will make many feel uncomfortable and unsafe. 

The professor gave her statement some deep, long, and hard consideration. He recognized that this was the majority viewpoint of youth today--everyone has a right to be happy. He began to think about what has caused such a false and unrealistic worldview to be so widespread. He came to some important conclusions. 

First of all, not everyone is going to be happy all of the time. There are 32 teams in the NFL. At the end of the Super Bowl each year, only one of the 32 teams will be happy. At the end of every football, basketball, and baseball game, only one team is happy. When hundreds of students apply to the college of their dreams, only the ones admitted will be happy. When two people are being considered for a career promotion, one will be unhappy. In 2022, there were 48,000 unhappy people: they were so unhappy, they killed themselves. The list can go on.

The professor asked himself, "Where in the world did this idea come from, that everyone has the right to be happy?" He asked because a study of history would  them otherwise (all Utopias fail); the Bible tells them otherwise; great art tells them otherwise; wisdom tells them otherwise, great literature tells them otherwise; common sense tells them otherwise; and certainly their own personal experience tells them otherwise. An examination of all those subjects would have told her that "everyone has a right to be happy" is false on the face of it.

And then the erudite professor realized that the girl was blind, not physically, but spiritually. And why was that? Because her education or, better yet, the lack thereof  had blocked her from seeing the truth. History? Gone from the curriculum. Great literature? Banned from English classes. She doesn't read anyway. Great art? She has no frame of reference for that. The Bible? No way.  She's been taught it's just one more old, irrelevant book. She has no wisdom because "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (That's in the "old, irrelevant" Book.) The professor concluded, she and her generation are not only blind, but also they can't be reasoned with.

There's no place on God's green earth where anyone is happy all the time. That's the dream of a Utopia which will never be on this earth. There's no getting back to Eden. This leads her and two previous  generations to anger and frustration and demand the building of  the Seven Cities of Cibola. Their theme song is the song from the 1960s, "The Impossible Dream."

IS THE GOSPEL REALLY "GOOD NEWS?"

 If you were to go back to yesteryear, a yesteryear a long time ago, back to the ancient Greeks, they didn't use the word "gospel" in the technical sense we do today to mean the good news about salvation. No, they used it in reference to the good news of a military victory for example. Only with the coming of Christianity and subsequent centuries did the word take on the meaning of good news about the coming of Christ. 

Spurgeon claimed, "Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else."  Another wrote, "Calvinism is the Gospel and to teach Calvinism is in fact to preach the gospel." And there's someone else who wrote, "Calvinism is the Gospel. Its outstanding doctrines are simply he truths that make up the gospel." 

The question is, is the gospel of Calvinism "good news" since the very word means exactly that?

To examine this, let's look at a statement by John Calvin: "We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which He compacted with Himself what He willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or death." 

This "compact with Himself" occurred way back in eternity past before the creation of man. Therefore, your destiny, everyone's future state, heaven or hell, was set in stone before anyone was born. Neither you nor anyone else have zero to say about going to heaven or hell. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

So, what's the answer to the question at hand:  

"The biblical gospel is the good news about what Jesus Christ has done on the cross respecting our sins. The gospel of Calvinism is likewise good news--but only if you are one of the 'elect' . . . to the non-elect, Calvinism is not good news at all--it is an eternal death sentence." (Lawrence M. Vance)

Is it any wonder that there is now a large number who are abandoning Calvinism and leaving Christianity altogether; that Calvinism is causing some to ask, "What kind of love is that?" others are brought to tears over such a God, more are saying, "I can't worship a God like that," and some to  become flat-out atheists?

WHY THE FAMINE?

 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord" So declared Amos the prophet. 

There are those who are highly influential in the evangelical world--they write books that pastors read as if they were reading the tablets handed down to Israel from Mt. Sinai. These luminaries hold conferences which pastors attend to get the latest methods of how to put warm bodies in the pews and they pay money to sit and listen and get the literature. When these Christian celebrities pontificate, it's taken as having come down ex cathedra and hence, there's no Scriptural examination. 

A case in point is a statement that has recently had wide circulation by the pontification, "Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible– that is just cheating. It’s cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn’t how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There’s not one example of that." He also said that verse-by-verse teaching was the "lazy way." (Pastor Andy Stanley)

That statement is interesting coming from someone who has never done it.

One author in response, wrote, tongue firmly planted in cheek, "It’s cheating. Do you hear that, you exegetes? You . . . pastors, sweating away in your study all week and to finish up before Sunday…you expositors checking the Greek and Hebrew and grasping the etymology of key words and phrases, putting it within Scriptural context, cross-referencing all the important verses, studying the commentaries of all the great scholars to unwrap the oracles of God verse by verse at a time?"

Let's play Bereans and examine the statement. Let's start in the Old Testament book of Proverbs in which we read, "Every word of God is pure." The actual word is "refined." The result is that, even down to every single word, the Bible is pure. The author didn't say that only part of the Bible is pure; all of it. 

Let's move to Isaiah 28:10: "“To whom would He teach knowledge,
And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
¹⁰ For He says^]Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.’

The context of those words is instructive--the Jewish leaders are mocking Isaiah's method of teaching them, line upon line. They're insulting him. (Sounds familiar.)

Go with me to Nehemiah 8:1-8: "And all the people gathered as one person at the public square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel. ² Then Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. ³ And he read from it before the public square which was in front of the Water Gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. ⁴ Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose. . . .  

⁵ Then Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶ Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” with the raising of their hands; then they knelt down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. ⁷ Also [certain people] explained the Law to the people while the people remained in their place. ⁸ They read from the book, from the Law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading."

 We move to the New Testament in Matthew 4:4: "But He (Jesus) answered and said, 'It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’” 

If that's not enough, how about Matthew 5:18?--"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!" 

We move to Paul's statement in Acts 20:26-27: " Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am ^]innocent of the blood of all people. ²⁷ For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God."

When one of Paul's, James', Peter's, or John's epistles arrived to a church, would we not think that it was read to the assembled line after line, not reading a part of it, then rolling 4 feet of the scroll to read a later part? Doing that, would mean of loss of the context for the footage read a moment ago.  

In fact, we have the official record of what Paul commanded the early house churches to do with an epistle's arrival: "When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea." (Col. 4:16) Here's another command: "I put you under oath by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters." How would the reader have read it? Line upon line, start to finish. We see the same thing in Revelation 1:3 with John's instructions to the ones who would read Revelation to the seven churches: "Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near."

I would submit to you that there is a famine of the Word today because, although we have a surfeit of preachers, we have a dearth of teachers who instruct line upon line.  

 

SHE CAN'T HELP IT

As I was rummaging my way through the miracle that is the Internet, lo and behold, I ran across a title of and article that intrigued me, so I clicked the link to find an article a newspaper about the love of God. 

I won't give the full essay here; I'll only hit the important parts which I  put in boldface type, as follows:

"Since Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, we were all born separated from God our Creator because of sin. But God didn’t abandon us. Look at John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who so ever believed on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  

[So far, so good. But hang on.]

"We are justified freely. Declared not guilty. When God forgives our sins, all charges are removed from His record. Our record is wiped clean as though our sins never happened. Christ is our sacrifice of atonement. God declares Christ’s death as an appropriate, designated sacrifice for our sins. He stands in our place, paid the penalty of death, and completely satisfies God’s demands for forgiving our sins. His sacrifice on the cross brings to those who accept Him; pardon, deliverance and freedom. Paul shows that God forgave all human sin at the cross of Jesus. We are purged and made clean with the precious blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross at Calvary.

"We can get the work of Christ applied to our own lives. We are saved by grace through faith, not from our works. It is God’s gift. We are saved through faith in Christ Jesus alone."

[An excellent statement, but hang on.}

As I read the entire article, I was impressed but then it happened: the writer took a wrong turn from grace and faith alone in Christ alone as you can see in her next sentence.  She wrote, "God loved the world in this way: He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him and follows His teachings will not perish but have eternal life"

Wait! What! The author just said that salvation is a gift apart from works, that it's through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Then, quoting John 3:16 again, she inserted four words that John never wrote and those four words contradict everything in the article.

"Follow His teaching" are the very works she's been arguing against and very clearly so in her essay. 

What she did is so very, very typical, all the while not seeing her inconsistency. We find it all over the place in gospel presentations: believe and commit, turn from sin, fell sorry for your sins, make Christ the Lord of your life, and on and on it goes. They can't help it; they add works non-stop while saying that salvation is apart from works.

There was a box at the conclusion of the article for a reader to put their name, email address, and comments to send to the author. No one had done so, so I decided to take the newspaper up on the opportunity and I did so, pointing out the inconsistency in her article as well as the four words she added to John's masterpiece of a sentence.

We'll see what we shall see.