Provoked: Critiquing the Seeker Sensitive Movement

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Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to another show of your favorite podcast provoked. I'm sitting next to my beautiful smart talented funny tiny sister

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Jake is back on the show I didn't get as many adjectives as Time goes by yeah, and you are kind of a beautiful man.

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So I guess I get going beautiful I call you a beautiful bearded man And Desi has a big surprise for us she's adopted yeah,

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I mean you guys told me that all the time but Baby number four on the way

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Praise God You guys make wonderfully beautiful babies. Thank you. Yeah, so so thankful that you guys are back on the show

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Provoked is of course one of the podcasts out here at apology of studios, and we want to provoke people to really

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02:16

We are gonna kind of get right into it for the sake of time Now a couple weeks ago. We did do a show with our brother and it was on critiquing the purpose -driven

02:26

Church or the seeker sensitive model and you know, we had to take that down for various reasons

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And so we're kind of redoing it. So that's gonna be the kind of a thrust of the show today is Critiquing the seeker sensitive model.

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So I have a question for you both Is it inherently sinful to critique things or not?

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I don't think it's inherently sinful to Offer a critique. I mean in some ways it's it's helpful to ask that question of why you know

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Why is this critique being offered? Why am I offering a critique? Paul you can look at the letters that he wrote particularly to the

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Corinthians, you know in 2nd Corinthians, especially he says He references a letter that he had written in the past, you know, he says

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I know that this letter made you grieve But but Paul did it for the purpose of repenting so that idea of offering a critique

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We do see it in Scripture if it's offered from a place of love if it's offered for with a desire, you know

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Ultimately to see repentance. It's a good thing. It builds us up. It sharpens us Yeah, I'm this way green.

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I agree with that totally because Paul even says in 1st Corinthians or maybe 2nd Corinthians 13 5 examine

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Right examine yourself to see if you're in the faith lest you feel the test So Paul is speaking saying hey examination is good.

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And then what about the faithful Bereans? What did they do? Well, they looked at whatever or they they looked at whatever that they were listening to or whatever they listened to they held it according

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To the Word of God or they held it up next to the Word of God to see if it was actually truth or not So the

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Bereans were were praised in the scripture because they did critique things in such a way they said, okay

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Does this jive with or is it harmonious with what the scriptures have to say?

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So it's okay to be able to look at a system and critique it and we should do that Sometimes you critique it and people within whatever system you're critiquing feel as though it's sinful to do that When it can be

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I mean you can just ad hominem, right? You can attack people you can have the wrong motive that you just want to tear people down for some reason

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I mean, how could we ever do that? That's just sheer sinfulness So from the outset in this critique of the seeker sensitive model, it isn't a bashing of any personal

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Anybody personally, right, right It's not to hurt all it is is to examine so that we can know whether or not some model

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Squares of scripture and is good for the church is actually something that's good and finds its root

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So yeah, I don't know where you guys want to necessarily drive The car and get this going but yeah

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Yeah, we had talked a little bit and I and I've even heard some folks say before You know that we're trying to go after, you know, like megachurches or why do you have such a much

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I have such a issue with megachurches and things like that And I even think that that phrase of megachurch is maybe not even quite specific enough because we're we're certainly not saying that Having a large church is a bad thing

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However, you know the approach the philosophy of ministry that you have to get to that large church

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Matters quite a bit. So I think you can I think you can have a big church and be faithful However, I think it's harder

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But at the same time that's not necessarily what we're what we're trying to offer this critique of it's a model philosophy of ministry

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That ultimately takes the focus, you know away from God places it on on to man And in a specific type of man, so that's that's a little bit of where we want to go

05:49

Yeah, so aren't we just selling division here? I mean, we're we're called to be defenders of truth, right?

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It's all throughout the Bible, I mean Jesus calls out the Scribes the Pharisees Like you said

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Paul says to examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. I think it's 2nd Timothy You know, he calls out people saying that if you're spreading something that's contrary to the

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Bible. It's gonna spread like gangrene Anybody that has a gospel that isn't the gospel that the

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Apostles preached it has a false gospel there. They're an anathema So, I mean there's critiques that God's people are defenders of truth, we're supposed to stand on the

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Word of God and Defend the truth because it matters. Yeah, absolutely And I think we should be open to critique right especially when we are spiritual leaders

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We were just talking about this as elders like all elders and all deacons I mean you get into the role and you're placed in the world into that role

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You should understand you should take be able to take critique Why is because one of the most important things that you that a person can do a

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Christian family can do is critique their elders? that they're gonna be under because those elders that are gonna be influenced in your life with the

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Word of God have an incredible impact in a positive way or a Very destructive way if they're false shepherds if they're false leaders false teachers and those guys exist out there right so a family should as they're

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Getting into a church that they want to put their roots down in look at the guys and say are these qualified men? Are they qualified according to not pop

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American evangelical standards? But the Word of God and what it says so we should as churches say hey

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Critique us. Let us hear it. We iron sharpens iron We need to be able to take it and so as we do this

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I think we're prefacing or starting our show this way is because in this evaluation and examination where again, this is not

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Attacking this is not sowing division. This is not creating disunity This is just something that we need to do and if it's bad for the church

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We should mark it out just like any good shepherd and but if you see something that's bad for the sheep He's gonna get the sheep away from it for their own good, right?

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Right. There's a there's a quote from Calvin that I really like it says that peace is

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Peace is not to be purchased by the sacrifice of truth. Mm -hmm. So it's not

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Necessarily unity at all costs we are called to be unified in Christ we're called to be unified as believers, but there are also times where Truth is going to divide

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Jesus even said that you know, I came not to bring peace but a sword Right, there are going to be times where the truth claims of the

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Bible where the words of our Lord are going to divide and cause Division so that's not necessarily our aim is just to be malicious and malign people but we want to stand on the truth of Scripture and especially in the

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The culture that we're in where there's such a hard drift away from you know biblical truth

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The people who say no, here's where my stake in the ground is They're going to be viewed as more and more, you know, quote -unquote extreme, right?

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We're loving people right because faithful are the wounds of a friend Like why what does that mean be that that's got to come from a critique, right?

09:02

The wounds of a friend is somebody that's rebuking you and telling you the truth. Exactly. Profuse are the kisses from the enemy

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Do not in Proverbs 9 here do not reprove a scoffer. He will hate you reprove a wise man and he will love you

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Yeah, that should be our stance. You know, we should be able to take correction take examination or admonishment or reprove

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Mm -hmm and so we say that again if you're listening to this and you maybe you belong to a seeker sensitive movement if you do have

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Ought with what we're saying you struggling with the things that we're saying and you just have to ask yourself.

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Is it because You know, you just really don't want to deal with it or do you have a good biblical reason?

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Why what we're doing here what we're saying is wrong or you know in error

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And so we would we definitely be open to critique and evaluation as a show and we would love to hear your messages

09:53

But I really want to challenge you if there's something wrong that we said, can you back it up in Scripture, right?

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Not necessarily as I don't want to pick a fight with you I'm not saying that but we should be able to point to the scriptures and say this

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Is why what you're saying is wrong? If not, then I would really challenge you to maybe look internally and say could it be that?

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I really don't want to deal with this, you know It's more comfortable to sit inside of a culture that you've completely acclimated yourself to or built your life around Rather than challenge that and maybe even talk to the leadership about it saying hey, these are some some biblical issues

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I need to bring up because You know, it must be said so What is let's just start out what is the seeker sense of model?

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Yeah Seeker sensitive model. It's first of all, it's a it's an approach to ministry

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It's a philosophy of ministry and it's one that in many ways takes the the local church and it views the person who is not in Christ or the unbeliever as The primary audience and that's not necessarily to say it's a church that's really focused on evangelism

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It's it's more so a church that wants to as much as possible cater to The person who is currently not in Christ and when we look at you know

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Some of those places in Scripture Ephesians Ephesians chapter 2. It's a wonderful Outlining of the gospel at the very beginning of the chapter

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Paul talks about those who are not in Christ He says that they're dead in their sins You know We can go to other places in Scripture where those who are not in Christ are they're alienated from God They love the darkness rather than the light, you know, they suppress the truth and unrighteousness

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Those types of people are the people that you know These more seeker type churches and there are different phrases you can use

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I just use seeker senses kind of like a overall term. You can use purpose -driven I've heard some people say attractional before those kinds of models

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Ultimately what they're doing is trying to cater to that person and a lot of times The real issue with that is that it's done at the expense of again as we said biblical truth, right?

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Yeah, so that's a I guess that's a question is even in the title seeker sensitive

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Yeah, it's assuming that people are seeking God, but what does the scripture say about that?

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No one yeah Romans chapter 3, right? No one seeks after God I think that they may see the benefits of maybe a

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Christian family or a Christian neighbor and they're like man. I want that But there's no one who who typically seeks after God so even in that kind of self -identification

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I think there's some biblical error in it But I mean, I guess the question we would have to ask is do we see in the scripture?

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Especially maybe in the book of Acts and the New Testament. Do we see spiritual leaders? Placating to the unbeliever or I I can't what word did you just use to describe it attraction?

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Attracting trying to cater trying to cater did so can we point to a biblical text where you're supposed to cater to an unbeliever?

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In order to get them into the location a certain location yeah, and I don't

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I don't think we do one of the one of the most important places to begin to have an understanding of you know

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The the gospel message and how we are to proclaim it because I believe the scriptures they not only

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Talk about what the message is, but we also Get the prescription the command for how to proclaim the message as well

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So we see in the gospel of Mark chapter 1 right off the bat in verse 15 says that Jesus went

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Proclaiming, you know the message of repent the time has come the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe the gospel and that Repent and believe the gospel that message repent and believe is all throughout the

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New Testament that that's the model That's the that's the call. It's not it's not necessarily really try hard to not offend someone and then express to them the love of God express to them how loving and gracious God is and how

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God really loves them and How if they you know, it's some some churches will do this of Pray a certain prayer, you know say these magic words

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Then Jesus will come into your heart and then you can have a relationship with them You know the the Bible the scriptures really at the end of the day.

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No, no nothing of that You know, it's always a message of repentance and faith understanding how how depraved we really are

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Mm -hmm, and then looking to Jesus in full faithful trust in him to save us. Yeah, that's awesome

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John chapter 6 Jesus says, you know, there's no there's no placating at all There's no placating, you know, he he's talking about, you know, if you

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Drink of my blood and eat of my flesh like unless you do this Right and they're like is this this is so hard to understand and he's like, well that's you know,

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I It's because none of you will believe unless the father Granted you that and so that is there placating and that he could have been like well

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This is what I mean by this, but he's just like no This is the truth the truth the situation yeah, because the

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Bible says he knows what's in man, you know, of course Did you want to go into the kind of the history a little bit of it?

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Yeah, just touch on this real briefly sometimes, you know, we talk about ideas or Concepts they can kind of be up in the clouds and it can be hard maybe sometimes to grasp

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What's what's actually being talked about? So when we talk about this seeker movement, sometimes it's helpful to ask like where did this come from?

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What's the origin of this right and really it it began earlier in the 20th century with What's called a church growth movement or the church growth model is a guy named

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Donald McGovern He spent quite a bit of time in India as a missionary And was trying for so many years to really start a church plant movement and after a while He found some methods that began to work

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So he came back to the US started teaching at Fuller Seminary and began He wrote a couple books and began training pastors in the methods that he learned on how to grow

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Numerically now, I don't necessarily know if McGovern had you know Negative malicious motives and anything or at self -centered motives

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But he learned these things that worked in his context and they began to train Pastors in these things and then those principles started getting taken by different church leaders pastors

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Molded changed edited until we have kind of the movement we have now and really One of the one of the biggest pieces that that pastors particularly in the

16:34

West took from some of these teachings Was the idea of research like researching the community that your church is in?

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I don't think it's I don't think it's wrong at all In fact, I would say it's right to understand the context that your church is in But when

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I say research, I mean like having conversations with people to see what they want

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You know and then and then giving them what they want based on their feedback in a church, you know, do you not like Organs, okay.

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We'll get rid of the organs. Do you not like when the pastor wears a tie? Okay, the pastor won't wear a tie It's again that catering placating approach and there were two individuals who took some of these principles and Really championed them and began to have quite a bit of success with them to our

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Rick Warren and Bill Hybels with Saddleback and Will Creek and they did just an exceptional job of getting people to come to their church

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Now I wouldn't say every single last bit of that is wrong Like I appreciate the heart that's there to want people to to know

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Jesus But the question is again the approach the philosophy you're taking the scriptures speak to that too

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And in needing to do that rightly is just so important so we have the

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Saddleback Willow Creek and then that kind of began to grow to to where we're at the point now where we have

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Several, you know churches tons of churches who take this approach of how can we cater to people who are not in Christ and make?

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It you know as comfortable as possible and hopefully they'll come to Jesus Yeah, and when you get those big groups of people coming in great but are you preaching on the holiness of God the night the depravity of man the exclusivity of salvation in Christ alone

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You know, those are the the big heavy hitters that unfortunately a lot of these bigger churches that appeal to the masses

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They're really light on talking about sin Repentance the holiness of God and so that's where the problem comes in that's where like Steve Lawson says you take one foot off a scripture and you're putting that foot right on a banana pill because It's gonna go wrong, right?

18:47

It's my minute mic on to you Not to me, but I I think it's on.

18:53

Okay. I can't hear it. Hold on a second. Hey Gabe Okay, she's on.

18:59

Okay, cool. I'll just clap because you probably have to out this out Okay, keep going

19:05

I'm done. Okay, cool. So I was thinking, you know based upon what you're saying, I think that foundational

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Ideology under everything or what we're hearing about as we're kind of exploring this is pragmatism, right?

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Yeah, you said it yourself We're trying to make we're trying to make something work or we're there's a goal that we want to achieve and we're modeling

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Everything after achieving that goal. So the question is is pragmatism inherently

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Unbiblical or is it unbiblical in this situation here? What do you think? Yeah, that's a good question

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I think there is a difference a lot of times between What is what is biblically faithful and what works, you know?

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It's not that those two are always at odds. I would say there's probably Non -sinful meat pragmatic means like if the pastor's preaching in a church, it's okay to have a microphone in front of them

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You know, they didn't have microphones in the first century like things like that, you know Different elements of worship those types of things

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There are means that we have just by common grace today. We can use the church That's that's not what we're saying

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But what we're saying is when it comes to handling or particularly pastors who are tasked with handling the precious

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Gospel of the Lord Jesus. I mean, there's there's nothing more important than that handling the Word of God rightly

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Faithfulness to what God has spoken in his word is ultimately the most important thing not necessarily what will work

20:36

You know in our society today Yeah, that's good because you know as I'm thinking about this and I have thought about this throughout the years because I did

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I Went to purpose -driven. I went to Saddleback Church in 2007 paid like 600 bucks to go to a

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You know pioneering planning type of conference because we're gonna plan a church and You know,

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I I think the biggest critique is that what we do or what what Rick Warren did is in the

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I think it was the late 70s could have been early 80s But he did go to that his his demographic like you're saying he went into the city and he said hey everybody

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What what don't you like about the church? He's very explicit about this What don't you like about the church and then they changed the way that they did or they actually they came into Building the church based upon what the culture didn't like about the church as a means to getting them in to the church

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But that's the I mean, I guess that's gonna be the rub for a lot of people hearing this is Shouldn't we get people into the church to hear the gospel?

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Isn't that right? Like Paul Paul said in first Corinthians 9 22 I'm all things to all men and so I've heard a lot of like oh look at they're just trying to relate with people

21:55

Just like Paul, but do you think Paul ever compromised truth? By relating to people.

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Yeah. No, he never compromised truth Like I mean the scriptures don't show us that he's a was a man.

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He was just a man, but he's not talking about Compromising biblical truth. He's talking about relating to people in their cultural

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Differences and traditions and not offending certain certain people, right? so yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the head because you can't go to Because and then we'll apply the scriptures to the unbeliever.

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They're they hate God. They're at enemy enmity with God. They're spiritually blind, right? You don't go to the unbeliever for them to lay out a blueprint of how you're gonna build your church

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But that is I think that that's essentially what they did the unbeliever. I mean at least in part

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I'm not saying completely but they Adjusted the church or the formation of the church according to what a dead

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God hating unbeliever wants and they went from there Because the church is not to be constructed by any other standard other than the

23:00

Word of God. Exactly. It's it's God's Because at the end of the day, this is really a conversation about the church and what the church is

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Mm -hmm. And one of the one of the key things Paul tells Timothy at first Timothy 3 that He says

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I'm writing to you I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God which is the church of the

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Living God and There's a lot of things you can pull from that passage. But one of them is it's God's Church So therefore we are to do church

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God's way and how do we know what God's way is? It's it's what's in the scriptures I did a just a little bit of digging into because it's obviously

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Rick Warren is one of the You know main figureheads of this movement. He's he's one of the ones who really popular

23:47

Popularized it and in his in his book. It's the purpose -driven Church he actually

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Writes he uses biblical justification for why seeker sensitivity is right and he uses 1st

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Corinthians 14 23, which which says If and I'm reading just the verse here if therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and Outsiders or unbelievers enter will they not say that you are out of your minds?

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So he just quotes that verse and then he says this on page 243 of the book He says God tells us to be sensitive to the hang -ups of unbelievers in our services

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Being seeker sensitive in our worship is a biblical command So that statement being seeker sensitive is a biblical command.

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I don't even necessarily disagree with the with the idea of being Sensitive to like sensitive in the sense that we don't need to be needlessly offending, you know

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However, the Word of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, right? So for him to make that that statement round out that sentence with being seeker sensitive is a biblical command and then using this passage in 1st

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Corinthians 14 23 what's so funny is if you if you look at that actual paragraph verses 20 through 25

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Paul's talking about speaking in tongues versus prophesying in the church and The whole point of the passage is how we can best edify the

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Saints so the point of the passage is about edifying Christians as Unbelievers are like the secondary people in the in this paragraph and then ultimately what he's doing is two verses before that He quoted from Isaiah 28 and talked about how tongues back in Isaiah's day like the tongues of the

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Assyrians They were actually a sign of judgment upon the unbelievers. So this verse in verse 23 when it says

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The unbelievers will come in they'll hear your tongues and they'll say that you're out of your minds That's actually a sign of God's judgment that unbelievers will hear the tongues and then they won't believe though They'll walk away and if you read the whole section, it says no you should rather you should prophesy

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Because then the unbelievers will hear and be convicted and worship God so reading that whole passage actually

25:54

Refutes the point that Warren is trying to make it's like no, it's not about being sensitive it's about being faithful to the

26:02

Word of God and then Unbelievers will come under conviction into repentance because it's not like oh, no, if you're not in Christ, you can't you can't ever come to church

26:11

You can it's just you're not gonna hear a watered -down message. You shouldn't you know It should be

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God's the wholeness of what the gospel is. Yeah, and that's Just be straight.

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That's a dangerous aspect of it is when you Twist the scriptures and I think that we can say or misinterpret the scriptures

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I mean, I'm not gonna accuse him of purposefully twisting the scriptures and people maybe he is

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But because when you have a model and now you use the scriptures and you take scripture you know, you kind of proof text the scriptures and use that to fit or Substantiate your model, right?

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That's not good. Right, right because the scripture should be the model not this model out here And then

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I'm gonna take the scriptures to try to validate that. This is true. That's the big air and I said Jesus, right?

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It's I said Jesus and I think what it is is you can look at these places I mean the one to Saddleback like this is huge Thousands of people going millions and millions of dollars buildings and all sorts of things happening

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You're like, oh god must be blessing this That's the crucial Situation here is that can or do we and I think we do we kind of move?

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That's the standards of the world the desires of the flesh. We move them into Our focus and then we say oh, this is what

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God wants, right? Because the Blessed Church is a big church the Blessed Church has a lot of people the

27:38

Blessed Church has a lot of money But but does it you know, right? Are we called to seek those things that are so appealing to the flesh?

27:45

or is it really about getting into the scriptures allowing them to paint the portrait of the biblical church in the biblical leaders and Just doing that and allowing

27:52

God to build because I guess that's a and this is a little bit off scripture but that's the that's one of the big questions is

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This is all so that we can grow the church, right, right a lot of it

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We're catering to the unbelievers So we can get the church big and I can understand we want people to hear the gospel

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And that motive is not not wrong, right even though I would say Evangelism the scriptures does not come and see it's going do right?

28:19

Yes, it's you see a model of people going into the church getting into the culture with the gospel

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So that's my question is is that our job to grow the church as biblical leaders well, look at look at a

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Peter's sermon at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 You know,

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Jesus has just risen from the dead. He commissions the Apostles He says you're gonna be my witnesses Jerusalem Judea Samaria to the ends of the earth

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Holy Spirit falls in Acts chapter 2 and then Peter preaches just this Unbelievable sermon, you know and and at the end of it it says that you know the

28:56

Lord Added to their number day by day those who are being saved. So this is why you know the for me

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This is why the doctrines of grace are so beautiful Salvation belongs to God He's the one who ultimately saves

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And not ultimately he's the one who does save period right and and in that example because people can look at and say well

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What about Pentecost 3 ,000 people God added, you know, like 3 ,000 people got saved. That's a huge.

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That's a big church Well again, that's why I said at the beginning Big church does not necessarily equal bad

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But what is the message that Peter Peter preached repent repent and believe, you know

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He said repent be baptized repent believe the gospel That's the message right and then the Lord is the one who

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Supernaturally made dead sinners alive and just in his providence by his grace It happened to be 3 ,000 people, but that doesn't mean we get to saw off some of the more

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You know naturally sharp edges of the gospel hoping that will grow in numbers And it's not necessarily that every single church leader is just concerned about numeric growth

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There are many, you know larger church pastors. They love Jesus. They want they want others to love Jesus But again the way that it happens the message matters and the medium matters because the scriptures speak to both of them

30:14

Yeah, and you see through church history. There's been moments of big groups revival

30:20

I What comes to mind is Jonathan Edwards sinners in the hands of an angry God?

30:25

Yeah I think we talked about this before where a Ton of people fell under repentance so much that you said they were like holding on to the trees

30:32

I'm on the banisters. I think yeah in the church and the trees outside. Yeah, and so the least seeker friendly, right?

30:39

That was a big group. So like to your point of like that's really not about the numbers it's like what's the message being preached and I think

30:46

Zach you kind of alluded to like the crux of the problem, which is letting the world seep in to the church and then preaching based upon the world standards of goodness and truth and and backing away from scripture and then you're appealing to Unbelievers and then what do you get like we've talked about before you get wheats?

31:08

Yeah, wheat and tares you get the wheat in the guitar you get goats and you get malnourished

31:14

Christians because they're not being nourished by the Word of God and they're just believing kind of this watered -down message and they're really not getting into the meat of God's Word and growing in there in their walk and then they're among unbelievers that There are false converts.

31:32

They think they're saved because they're not hearing the true gospel They're not really understanding like I didn't when

31:38

I was the false convert like I didn't understand my depravity I thought I was pretty good And so it wasn't until I heard the actual gospel preached that I said,

31:48

I'm in trouble. I am a sinner and I need Christ so yeah.

31:53

Yeah, that's good. And that kind of goes into you know, why this is so concerning Yeah, you know why

31:58

I even do this, you know Exactly one of the one of the biggest things that comes to mind is again earlier reference 1st

32:04

Timothy It's God's church. So we're to do it God's way and ultimately what is what is church for?

32:13

You know, well the church is to worship God. It's God centered. It's God is the point.

32:18

He's the purpose he's the one we gather to worship and it's what we see in Scripture is the Saints gathering to worship

32:25

God on the Lord's Day and Then those Saints are then sent out throughout the week and they go proclaim the gospel that others who the

32:34

Lord has Predestined will also hear and come and worship too. You know, that's the model. It's gather

32:40

Be sent gather be sent gather be sent. It's not necessarily, let's open up our doors as wide as we can and get as many people to come in and one of the one of the most pertinent places in Scripture that that has challenged me in this area is in the book of Exodus where Moses in chapter 33, he asks

32:59

God he says, please show me your glory That's like a I don't know if I have quite have the courage to ask that question

33:06

But Moses said please show me your glory and God said no one can look upon me and live and put you in the cleft of The rock

33:12

I'll pass by and then you'll be able to see my glory as I pass by and then in Exodus 34 God defines himself

33:18

He passes by and he gives these these attributes that we can see and I think this is really

33:24

Foundational for understanding who God is. This is God talking about himself. He says the Lord the

33:29

Lord He says a God merciful and gracious Slow to anger abounding and steadfast love of faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin and I think there's there are large numbers of Evangelical preachers churches who stop right there.

33:47

They stop and they say God is merciful. He's gracious. He's loving He's slow to anger, you know abounding steadfast love.

33:53

He forgives your sin and they stop and That sounds great, you know and and also it's true

34:00

But it's not fully true and they leave off that last piece that God says about himself where he says

34:06

But he will by no means clear the guilty Visiting the iniquity and the fathers and the children So what we see there is that God is merciful gracious loving all the things but he's also just right

34:17

He has to and will punish the evildoer and when you take that full

34:22

Description that God gives of himself and you zoom out a little bit There's one word that starts to rise above all of it and it's holy

34:29

God is holy and that's what matters people need to come and and behold and worship

34:36

The Holy God in all of his fullness And you know and so many people today. I'm reading through Andy Stanley's book irresistible

34:46

Which I will admit is a is a difficult read sometimes But this idea of like trying to trying to unhitch or remove yourself from the

34:53

Old Testament He just calls it the Old Covenant, you know, and it's almost like functionally there There's a belief in like two different gods

35:00

There's like the Happy New Testament God and then the really angry Old Testament God, but he's the same. Yeah yesterday today forever and We are as his people to worship him in the fullness of who he is

35:10

And when you don't do that when you leave that off You're actually doing a disservice to unbelievers because they'll never actually know the

35:17

G's the real Jesus that the Bible speaks of you know That's excellent. That's the word for church is what?

35:24

Actually, yeah, right and that means the called -out ones right holiness is right.

35:29

We're being something that's separate When we're talking about God's holiness is otherness.

35:35

He's separate from us. Of course, there's communicable and incommunicable attributes, right? But that's one of the most concerning things is if we are just becoming like the unbeliever to get a man so they feel comfortable

35:48

We're taking the church out of the church Understanding what the church is because we are supposed to be called out from the culture in such a way that's distinctive

35:56

Due to our Christ likeness, right? Yeah, so that's one of the big most concerning things is

36:03

That very issue we can't become like the world to win the world and I think that's even though they say we're not doing that I it's it's hard and I've been in these churches and I've understood this and I've seen this it's hard not to do that when

36:17

You're just trying to be attractional to an unbeliever because is the God hating unbeliever going to be attracted to the things of God No, no.

36:27

No. Yeah. No, it's like that's what they say. The unbeliever will want to come into the house of God Just like a criminal will want to go into the police station.

36:36

Yeah there it's repulsive It's something that they want to stay away from right church That's why somebody said any good shirt and church has you know, an open door or two revolving doors people running into it the saved and people running out because the

36:51

Unbeliever should really not feel comfortable in the household of faith, you know, right and you know our heart in all of this and I hope that our listeners understand is is

37:00

We're moved out of love and compassion and concern for the bride

37:06

People that are in these types of church because there's a real danger. It's not just for The unbelievers that are false converts in there

37:15

Of course, our hearts are broken for them and we want them to come to God you know come to know the truth of of God and but it's also for the elect that are in these systems that Because the guardrails of Scripture are not firm

37:31

All sorts of weird doctrines can come in. Yeah, and that's dangerous That's dangerous for the bride and they can fall into all sorts of things

37:38

If we if we put our hands off a scripture we go, oh, you know Let's look at what this guy's saying instead, you know his opinion and it's it's kind of agreeing with this

37:48

You know, there's a lot of things that they're saying He says Jesus a lot and love and mercy and goodness and hey,

37:54

I see that in the Bible, but he's really you know He's not talking about some of this other stuff. It's okay. But then like you said, you know, you're not really

38:01

Understanding the holiness of God right and our need for a Savior and so that's dangerous and what would what would motivate people to Evangelize if they didn't think that their neighbor was in trouble, right?

38:17

God just loves him. He didn't really need to do anything, right? Yeah, he's just He's cool with everybody exactly so it's dangerous and that's why we wanted to do this episode it's not to be arrogant

38:29

It's not to be like hey, we know it all it's because we love God's people and we want them to be

38:36

Set free of sin and we want them to be in a good healthy church where they can be discipled and grow in the knowledge

38:44

Christ exactly and and there's an element to with that. I think it marries very nicely Yeah, it's it's a concern for people

38:50

It's a good serve of people's souls right where you have where you have churches that are just trying to make you as comfortable as possible

38:56

You know, come on in come as you are which yeah, okay That's not necessary but come on in and we'll never tell you anything different, you know that type of thing

39:05

That's ultimately unloving to people and there's this other aspect to that I think is it can be so often miss

39:10

I personally miss it a lot is is the fear of the Lord Just the fear of God of who

39:16

God is, you know the scriptures say that again merciful gracious loving But it's also a fearful thing to fall into his hands.

39:22

He's a consuming fire I always think of the story of Nadab and Abihu Leviticus 10.

39:28

Yeah, they They they weren't necessarily doing anything that we know of that was had malicious intent

39:34

They didn't just become newly ordained priests and say well, let's just let's just offer fire however, we want to they were probably super excited, you know, they're

39:44

Aaron's sons, you know, they want to uphold the family tradition of being priests, but they do something wrong They offer the unauthorized fire and God immediately consumes them now we read passages like that now today and we think

39:56

Wow, I'm glad that God's not that way anymore or you know, we think things like that or okay That's just a weird Old Testament story.

40:01

I don't understand Well, what that really is is just a specific instance of God's justice

40:07

He rightfully he rightfully consumed them and the only reason that we're living and breathing right now is

40:14

Because of his grace to us, you know, and for those who are not in Christ that's why we have such a passion for evangelism to go and proclaim the gospel because We don't know when our lives are gonna end

40:24

And in the only way to be to escape from that Just judgment that we deserve from a holy gogs

40:31

We're sinners before a holy God is through repentance and faith in Christ the only way to be saved

40:36

So it's yes, we want you to know Jesus, you know, it's it's the way to a you know Oh, we want you to know

40:41

Jesus But we also want you to have some fear of the Lord and an escape from under the wrath of God that whole

40:47

Jonathan Edwards I feel like we could use a healthy dose of that in our day today of like You're only being held up Ever so delicately, you know

40:58

And it's only through Christ that we can be saved like we could stand to use a good dose of that fear of God Right now that's important.

41:05

Yeah, a lot of reasons why I should be concerned about this Kiss movement or philosophical system.

41:11

I think is really what it what it is but I really think it weighs on the hearts of pastors because you know

41:17

I've been in the faith for about 25 years and I've talked to different pastors and I noticed something like I would

41:22

I would kind of Examine them and they were guys that were teaching at the Bible College that I was going to and I said man

41:29

Got a really successful church and he's like I have a successful church I only have a hundred people and it happened multiple times

41:35

Yeah, right He equated the success of his pastor based upon how many people he had And I think that's the most concerning thing that we could do is just say oh look

41:45

You know, it's all about Gathering. It's all about growing. It's all about the numbers and of course we want to see numbers saved

41:51

But then you make that the standard of what it means to be a successful pastor, right? Yeah, that becomes the the goal of the end -all and so these these pastors with all that they're doing to you know

42:03

Lay their lives down for the sheep and oversee their souls Then they're wearied and weighed down by the fact that they're really losers because they only have a certain amount of people

42:11

But in the scriptures, no, we're not called to have a whole lot The Bible says that he he causes the growth that he gives different pastors different levels of responsibility and capability to care for Certain numbers of sheep right right 30 50.

42:26

I remember I went to this one This one conference and then the guy said he had like a church of 10 ,000 people

42:33

You know, we look like a GQ model and butt -tight jeans and all that and then he's like you're all this is my word of the

42:40

Lord You're all fivefold ministries from this point on right?

42:47

Mm -hmm, and that's horrible Yeah to say let's name it and claim it Yeah, name it and claim it you guys are all fivefold ministries and you can be a fivefold ministry

42:55

I'm like who are you to say that and what a horrible thing to say to a man? Who's not a fivefold ministry or something that God has determined that he's gonna be the pastor of a small flock

43:05

Yeah, and he's just gonna live and die for them because our goal and our role is not to gain a lot of people

43:11

It's to be faithful to take care of the sheep and to lead them into green pastors into the Word of God To exemplify what it means to be a holy

43:20

Christian, right? That's why it's so concerning it if It would just that hopefully pastors if they're listening they can kind of rid themselves from ungodly

43:30

Worldly standards of success or what anybody else is telling them and just say hey, just be faithful where you are.

43:36

Yeah Yeah, it's it's it's damaging. We were just talking to Liam about this about that the kind of name

43:43

I didn't claim it and that Sometimes good Intentioned Christians that are just trying to be helpful.

43:49

We'll say things That are just not based off of Scripture because they're hearing it at church things like hey, you know, you're you're sick

43:57

But I really believe if you just have enough faith, you're gonna be healed But what if it's not God's will to be for them to be healed.

44:03

I remember when we were going to a bigger church and We had gone through two miscarriages and I was really struggling in my faith.

44:12

Why is God doing this? What am I being punished for? sins of my youth and I had well -meaning friends saying, you know,

44:22

I think you just have to have more faith and God has given you this desire and so you just need to believe that you're gonna have more kids and then he will give you the desires of your heart and It just didn't

44:32

I mean I did end up having more kids praise God But I remember even just struggling men being like but if it's not according to his will

44:40

Then I'm not not everybody gets to have kids and is God just about fulfilling the desires of my heart because it also

44:49

Says that the desire the heart is deceitfully wicked who can trust it. And so it was just I was really struggling emotionally and spiritually and physically and and I Because I was going to a church that wasn't there there was some really wonderful things about that church and I love a lot of the people there but The people were not

45:10

Didn't have the wisdom of God being preached Faithfully the whole counsel of God and so they just had these little snippets.

45:17

And so they really couldn't offer me Advice that would be that salve to my soul that I needed which is from God's Word.

45:25

And so Without you know, and and they were lovely people just trying to help me But it's we we can have caused damage when we were not giving advice that scriptural like fully scriptural and Have more

45:39

I don't know go through a harder time than we really need to if we just understood that a lot of trials are to Sanctify us.

45:45

Yeah, that would help us a ton, you know, yeah, and you know, we get about 10 more minutes left

45:51

So I just want to let you kind of direct the ship and do the harbor to to yeah close things down Well, maybe two things

45:59

I want to touch on one last piece of what we've been talking about with this kind of seeker Movement things like that and then and then

46:06

I'd love to get into you know What the church well the church is what the marks of a church are and what we see in the

46:13

Word of God So because we've been speaking again in some generalities Talking about the the seeker sensitive movement and some of these churches that are more attractional in their in their position

46:23

And again did a little digging here and there's actually some some research that's been done on this

46:29

There's a guy named GA Pritchard who's a scholar and he has an expertise in the sociology of religion

46:35

I don't even know you could have expertise on that. But this guy he went to Willow Creek Church This is way back.

46:42

This is like mid 90s. Okay, maybe I shouldn't say way back. This was this was in the mid 90s and he he attended

46:50

Willow Creek Church for a year and Devoted himself to understanding their approach their how how

46:55

Bill preaches and he said this this is a direct quote And he actually wrote a book. It's called Willow Creek seeker services evaluating a new way of doing church

47:03

And he said high bulls is relevant teaching that God wants to meet individuals needs and make them fulfilled

47:10

Unduly shapes his gospel message the holiness of God and the convicting nature of God's moral law are obscured

47:17

It's not that high bulls does not speak of God's holiness and the need to repent It is merely that the message of God's transcendent holiness is flooded by the broader emphasis on God's imminent

47:29

Compassionate love and that's exactly what we've been talking about the holiness of God almost gets pushed to the side

47:35

So that your felt needs can can be met right and then and then maybe we'll bring You know the holiness of God in at some point but not right now and then you know lest we think this is just This one church, you know this one time and this one period he says

47:49

Willow Creek is not alone in the problem I've depicted the American Evangelical Church Generally has lost a vision of the

47:56

Lord's holiness now some people can say, okay, that was 1996 you know, that was a little again that that was a a period of time ago and and You guys probably don't want to know when

48:07

I when I was born This this was you know written in the 90s has this gotten? You know in the question is has this gotten better or has this gotten worse?

48:18

and and in my view I look around and see some of the messages that are being propagated some of the

48:24

You know the prosperity gospel more subtle versions of the prosperity gospel. I Don't feel like it's gotten better, you know, like this is still around right and this is why we need to we need to Have people who are willing to stand up and say yeah,

48:38

I know they're gonna be people Ardently disagree with me on this but again faithfulness to scripture is that important?

48:44

We need to call all of us ourselves included We need to examine ourselves just as much as people were in this need to examine ourselves

48:50

We all need to look back at what God's Word teaches and make sure we're you know, always reforming We're always looking back at the scriptures.

48:57

Yeah form ourselves. That's one thing real quick. I mean, that's startling How the like you said the holiness of God gets pushed off to the side

49:05

Because I think you know the big Justification for church growth strategy is bring them in Preach the gospel to them, right?

49:14

We want to get them in so they can hear the gospel But what's so startling is that I guess in the communication the holiness of God doesn't have its place because what

49:26

I've been doing is throughout the church a big burden for me in a goal of 2023 is bringing our people into Personal one -on -one evangelism training and going the first thing that I do and I'm I can take a lot of time here

49:39

We don't have a lot of time But I help people to understand that the true gospel messages multi has multi components to it

49:47

Who is God is creator man is sinful the judgment Jesus what he did on the cross

49:53

But one of the most crucial things that we learn about The gospel message is the place of God's holiness.

50:00

Not only is God our creator But God is holy because in the scriptures It's the revelation of the holiness of God to somebody that exposes their sinfulness.

50:10

Yes, right Yeah, so when Isaiah saw the Lord seated on the throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the glory

50:17

I heard the temple with glory the angels were encircling and what were they saying about God? Holy, holy, holy, and then what did he say?

50:28

It was the holiness of God that helped him see his own So Peter's in the boat with Jesus.

50:34

Yeah, have you ever read the holiness of God baracy sprawl? I started totally stealing So Jesus is in the boat or sorry

50:42

Jesus in the boat Peter's in the boat Jesus says hey cast the net off to the side huge haul of fish and then what is

50:47

Jesus or Paul? Sorry, Peter say to Jesus get away from me from I'm a sinful man

50:52

Yeah It was the revelation of the holiness of God in those instances and in more places of Scripture That the sinner becomes aware of his sinfulness so for you to push the holiness of God outside of the equation when you're explaining the gospel message and Say that you're evangelizing.

51:09

It's not gonna happen. I think that's why in these churches There's not a lot of growth or sanctification because the gospel

51:19

Unfortunately, and I'm not gonna point a finger at someone necessarily a specific person we can though It's because that gospel is a truncated one

51:27

It's missing an essential component and like Ray Comfort would say when you take the components out of it

51:33

You rob it of its curative powers. Amen. Yeah, that's a big issue Yeah, exactly.

51:38

So good. Yeah Well, well, so what did you want to finish up here?

51:44

Yeah, just quick flyby of the marks of a church Yeah, you know because we've been we've been spent a lot of time with the critique

51:50

We can end on on this kind of positive note of what are the marks of a church? So just real fast

51:55

Calvin says in the Institutes He says wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard and the sacraments administered according to Christ's institution

52:04

There is it is not to be doubted a church of God exists there It is not to be doubted a church of God exists

52:11

So from that we can and of course Calvin's pulling this from from Scripture ultimately

52:16

So there's two big marks that we see from the Reformers. The first one is preaching the Word of God Paul says in Acts 20 27.

52:23

He did not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God, you know I don't I don't think sermons are meant to be you know, you start with one verse and you kind of Trampoline you bounce off of that verse and then you get to into whatever you really want to say

52:36

It's preaching the whole counsel of God and what does the whole counsel of God mean? You have to preach all 66 books and then and then that's the only time you say it.

52:43

No, it's Understanding that God's revelation of himself in Exodus, you know preaching so people understand the fullness of who

52:50

God is Right, that's the first mark. The second one is the right administration of the sacraments, you know approaching baptism in the way that the

52:57

Bible describes Approaching the Lord's Supper in the way that the Bible describes Sometimes there can be some flippancy that surrounds the

53:04

Lord's Supper and that's something I appreciate about our elders at Apologia and other faithful churches do this too of Inviting believers to the table to partake in the

53:14

Lord's Supper when the Saints gather But also giving that I think it's gospel warning of saying if you're not in Christ, you know, do not come to the table

53:23

It's it's only judgment upon yourself. You need to examine yourself Everybody does you know, and it's not like I need to feel righteous and I can go to the table

53:31

It's no I need to take an honest look at myself Confess my sins to the Lord and approach the table if I'm in Christ And if I'm not

53:38

I think there needs to be a clear pastoral, you know Exhortation given of don't come to this table.

53:44

This is this will be judgment upon you. Do not do this This is a serious thing, right? And then those are the two marks and then

53:50

I would put a last one in their church discipline I think church discipline is really important. We see that outlined by Jesus Matthew 18

53:58

Then church discipline deals with sin, but it also helps distinguish who's part of the body and who's not

54:03

You know who's in the body of Christ and who's outside the body of Christ and that allows the pastors to really know who their people are and shepherd them well, so Those are the marks of the church that were always and some people have more

54:16

It's that you know some some other ones, but I think those are really key places Yeah to look at and say here's what the church is.

54:23

Here's what we should be striving exactly And I think I love how you we ended this. Yeah, it's not only critiquing the church, but it's also saying hey

54:29

This is what the scriptures say Right because we can ultimately critique anything based upon what we know to be true of what the scriptures say about any given subject

54:37

Right. No, I know we wanted to get into a certain individual, but we're gonna leave that for the future

54:44

But what I wanted to ask you is I'm sure there's pastors. There's people in Seeker sensitive churches right now listening to this and they feel offended and they feel like oh, man

54:55

You know, these guys are just trying to hurt my church or speak out even though we haven't really spoken

55:02

Anybody's Specifically other than Willow Creek and Saddleback, right? Yeah, maybe we just conclude this

55:08

What would you say to those people that are really being offended by what we're saying here? Yeah, I would say have nothing nothing but love for you

55:17

That this isn't meant as a sinful or a personal attack. It's meant as a an exhortation to self -examination

55:23

That's what we're trying to do help Christians to examine themselves. Just like we're all called to just like I need to And sometimes the truth

55:32

It hurts to hear in the moment, but later it it yields that fruit of righteousness

55:37

Right. I can end with this Paul says this in 2nd Corinthians 7 It says it in verse verses 8 and 9 for even if I made you grieve with my letter

55:46

I do not regret it though I did regret it for I see that that letter grieved you though only for a little while as it is

55:53

I rejoice Not because you were grieved But because you were grieved into repenting for you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us

56:02

I think that's wonderful. Sometimes we got to hear hard things. It leads to repentance Into godliness and we can praise

56:07

God for that. Awesome. Amen. Awesome. Well, I appreciate all the work you put into this Yeah, anything else no, yeah,

56:15

I think that was an excellent episode I'm looking forward to hearing some of the the comments and you know, we do

56:21

I think sometimes we get so afraid of like Critiquing even the word critique but I mean

56:27

It's biblical for Christians to critique and we're gonna call out more people by name because we're called to do that we're actually as you as a pastor, you know, you're called to call out wolves and Yes, just it's just part of the one of the duties of a

56:41

Christian to do that to call out false teaching And we're gonna do it and we're gonna do it in a hopefully a way that honors

56:50

God cool balance Yeah robust studious way because we love God and we love

56:55

God's people and the truth matters Yeah, I think somebody said if you don't warn the sheep of the wolves

57:01

You're not gonna have any more sheep because the wolves are just gonna eat them. Yeah, it's important Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode it has been an in look into the seeker sensitive

57:14

System seeker sensitive philosophy. And again, like my brother just said it was a no way to attack anybody but to critique a certain church certain type of church because Jesus did warn of false teachers

57:28

There are false assemblies or false churches and we don't want you to be a part of one because it's so destructive for you

57:35

Your family and your future and that's really the heart behind this So we would say look into your pastors your shepherds your church and hold them up not to what we say