Equipping Eve: The Gospel of Amusement

Well, hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve. I'm your host Erin Benziger. Hey, did you know that you can check us out on social media? Facebook, which everybody knows is my favorite. Actually, I don't care for Facebook, but we use it here for Equipping Eve.

That is one place to find links to the latest episodes as well as the occasional article or sermon link. I don't use Facebook all that often, but when I do, hopefully I'm sharing something edifying, something that will help encourage, challenge, and grow you.

So check us out on Facebook, Equipping Eve. Also on Twitter, that's at Equipping Eve. And of course, you can find the latest episodes at equippingeve .com or .org. Both of those addresses will work. And you can email me at equippingeve at gmail .com.

Joel Osteen’s Devotional and False Assurance

Hey, let's get started on the show today. You know, we like to have a little moment of insanity from time to time here at the show. And so today's moment of insanity is brought to you by Joel Osteen. You're welcome.

Joel Osteen's devotional version of his book Every Day of Friday. This is daily readings from every day of Friday, 90 devotions to be happier seven days a week. So there you go. If you never want the weekend to come, you read the book Every Day of Friday.

So Joel Osteen, at the start of this devotional, quotes Proverbs 15. For the soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. He says, let's stop judging people and start healing people.

I was in a long grocery store checkout line of about nine people, and the young woman running the cash register seemed to be stressed out. She was very short with people, and some of them were short with her in return.

She made no bones about the fact that she did not want to be working. The mood was tense and only worsened when she had a problem with her register. She had to call the manager, causing further delays.

Then she needed a price check on someone's groceries. It was taking so long my bananas were no longer green. Customers in line were grumbling about her bad attitude, which seemed to only make her ruder.

The checkout clerk was wrong. She should not have been rude to the customers, but her actions were so out of line, I knew something else was bothering her. Joel Osteen is a prophet. There was obviously a deeper problem than work stress, he says.

I decided to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. When my turn finally came to check out, I smiled and encouraged her. Hey, I can tell you're stressed out about something, and people are aggravating you, but I'm here to tell you that whatever the problem is, it will work out.

Everything will be all right. God has you in the palm of his hand. He knows what you're going through. He has the solution. Big tears streamed down her cheeks. At first she struggled to say anything, biting her lip, but then the words poured out.

My baby is in St. Joseph's, the hospital, and I've been so worried. Then yesterday my husband was laid off, and I don't know how we're going to make it. Joel writes, I've been known to offer a prayer in all sorts of situations, but this was my first time in the grocery checkout line.

Let me pray for you, I said to her, and right there in Express Lane 2, we prayed yada yada, and everyone in line, their attitude changed, and it was so wonderful. So this devotion tells us how amazing Joel Osteen is.

Why study the Bible for your daily devotions when you can study the amazing life of Joel Osteen? Now there's multiple problems here, but it's just so interesting. He has no idea if this woman is a Christian, no idea whatsoever, and yet he makes some very interesting promises to her.

You know, he says, whatever the problem is, it will work out. Everything will be all right, he says. Now Christian or not, we can't say that. From a worldly perspective, will everything be all right? What if this woman's baby died?

But now he's told her that God has worked it out for everything to be okay. Well, from her perspective, a child who dies would not be everything being okay, so he's misrepresented God. We don't know God and his providence, what he has planned, and what he has ordained, and so we cannot assure people like this.

We can assure them that God is sovereign. We can assure them that he is in control, and we can give them the gospel, especially if we don't know if they're saved or not, and give them the gospel, and encourage them to repent and place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Instead, he says, God has you in the palm of his hand. Well, when I read that, I think of John 10, where Jesus says in verse 27, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one, and those verses are speaking about believers. It's the promise that Christ will keep us, and that we will see eternal life if we have indeed been saved, but Joel Osteen has no idea if this woman is saved.

No clue, and yet he has made all these promises to her, when what he should have been doing is preaching the gospel to her, and sharing, and showing, and proclaiming the hope that is in Christ alone. Way to go, Joel.

Way to go, and there's no scripture to support any of this, but today's thought that he ends this devotional with, it says, today listen to your heart. Take time to be still and quiet before the Lord.

Allow him to teach you what to say. As you submit your words and ways to him, he will direct your path. Oh, it's got a little bit of biblical words in there, doesn't it? You know, thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path, but yet Joel is saying to just sit in the silence, and let God talk to you.

There's nothing about the scriptures, and listen to your heart. You mean that heart of mine that's deceitful, and desperately wicked? That one? I'd prefer not to listen to that, but thanks anyway, Joel Osteen, for being, if nothing else, consistent.

Consistently wrong, but consistent. I suppose if we're going to be consistent, if we're going to be wrong, we might as well be consistently wrong. Let's instead strive for fidelity to the scriptures, to Christ, and to the gospel, shall we?

Okay, there's your moment of insanity. Okay ladies, this is a brief interjection here in the show. I actually recorded the introduction you just heard, and what you will hear subsequently, several weeks ago, but I wanted to record a quick point of clarification for this episode.

So this episode will discuss a lengthy quote from Charles Spurgeon, or what we believed was from Charles Spurgeon when we recorded the show. It is an excellent quote. It is very true, and very accurate, and very relevant to discuss in today's evangelical world.

However, it was brought to my attention not too long ago when I posted this quote on my blog at DoNotBeSurprised .com that there is a chance that this particular quote is not from Charles Spurgeon, but rather from one of his students, Archibald Brown.

So Phil Johnson brought that to my attention back on June 9th. So I wanted to thank Phil for that, even though he's not listening because this show is for ladies only, right? But I wanted to make sure that we had that point of clarification.

You'll hear me discuss in the episode that this is Charles Spurgeon, but just know that at the time, that's what we thought. That's apparently a common this quote is commonly attributed to Charles Spurgeon, but there is a chance that it was actually written or delivered by Archibald Brown.

It may have been Spurgeon. It may have been Brown. Either way, it's a very relevant quote to discuss. So with all that being said, we will continue with the remainder of the show, and I hope you enjoy, ladies.

Hope you don't hold that against me, but we're thankful for Phil for bringing that to our attention so that we can say, hey, it might have been Spurgeon. It might have been Brown. We don't necessarily know 100 for sure, but we're thrilled that some godly man teacher was able to bring these thoughts to us so that we can be discussing them even today here in 2016.

So ladies, thanks for your grace, and let's keep going with the content of the show. Now, what else are we going to talk about today? John MacArthur recently preached a sermon that was called Calling the Church to Repent, and he really, it was a two-part sermon, and at another time in another show, I really want to discuss the second part of the sermon or some truths that he brought out in the second part of the sermon because I thought the Christian community's reaction to part one as opposed to part two was rather telling of the Christian community, but I'm actually waiting for the part two to come out, so we can't talk about that today.

The Church’s Call to Repentance

So as I record this, we're going to talk about part one of the sermon, and MacArthur took this sermon from the first three chapters of Revelation, and he's speaking about the churches, the seven churches in Revelation two and three, and how Christ was calling five of them to repentance.

And they're wonderful sermons, wonderful overviews of these chapters, these early chapters in the book of Revelation, and MacArthur really makes some very interesting points. He just really clarifies those scriptures and draws them all together, those letters to the churches, in a very wonderful way, pointing out the progression that we see in the churches, where you see Ephesus, which is a church of believers, but you know Christ still has has words calling them to repentance, all the way down to Laodicea, where there are no believers in that church.

It is an utterly false church, and so in every church, except for those that did not receive condemnation, in every church we see a progression. There's progressively more and more unbelievers in those churches, and it was just very striking to me as today there is such a push among the seeker churches, and even those that maybe outwardly don't appear to be seeker driven, quote-unquote, but more and more in their actions are proving to be.

There's this this whole doing church for the unchurched thing, and you know this is how we draw in unbelievers. We do church for the unbelievers. We want to draw them in. It's a bait and switch, except when you bring them in and bait them in, you're not actually giving them the real God, really doing anything except creating false converts.

But there's such a mindset that we want unbelievers in the church, and there's been a push even among some leaders in the seeker-sensitive movement that, you know, once you get saved, church is no longer for you.

You know, we just need you to work in the nursery or this or that because we need your seat for the unbelievers. Well, that's not the purpose of the church, of the church building and the church corporate worship service.

That's not the purpose. Church corporate worship is designed for believers. This is where we go and we fellowship with a physician and teaching and preaching and proclamation of his word. Church is not to bring in unbelievers.

No, no, no. Church is where you as a believer go. You are edified. You are fed. You are taught. You are equipped, and then you go out into the world, and God has strategically ordained and placed each one of us in different realms, and we have different people that we encounter, and and then we share the gospel with those people.

That's how difficult to see that. It's in scripture. It's not complicated, and yet for some reason, the visible church here today, at least in the Western world, doesn't seem to understand that. Shocking.

So MacArthur, of course, is making the point we have to look at the visible church. Does the church corporate, does a church corporately need to repent? And let's see. In this sermon, MacArthur says, he says, It's shocking to me that there are some in ministry in the name of the Lord Jesus who are proud that their churches are open and welcoming to adulterers, fornicators, immoral idols, decreasing concern for doctrinal truth which produces purity, which produces protection.

The well-known pastor of one of the largest churches in America, if not the largest, recently said, Don't ever put theology before ministry, and he said it blatantly. He goes on, he says, There are churches that are so concerned to pull sinners in that they don't want theology getting in the way of their welcome.

To such churches in Asia Minor that embrace the culture, that embrace the sinners in the culture, our Lord does not say, I'm so glad you made all the assorted sinners feel welcome. I'm so glad you did that.

I'm so pleased that all the assorted sinners feel accepted. No, no, no. It's the opposite. To all those churches in Asia Minor in which these transgressions exist, the Lord sounds an unmistakable call to repentance.

Here's the only place in scripture where you have a call from the head of the church to churches, specific actual churches that are dishonoring him, and he repeats one word over and over again. Repent.

Stop. Confess your sin. Turn around and go back in the direction of holiness. When Peter said it is time for judgment to begin at the house of God, he was anticipating that 25 years after he said that, that judgment would be declared on churches that were unfaithful, and that it would continue to be declared on them through all of church history.

There are many churches in the world today, many churches in our country today, many well-known churches, many very popular churches, and many the house of God, says MacArthur, end quote. And he's right.

He's right, isn't he? And we can think of many churches right off the top of our head, many large well-known churches like he's talking about. But there are smaller churches, little wannabes that would like to be like Willow Creek or Saddleback or Elevation Church, and New Spring Church.

They want to be like these large churches, and those churches need to repent as well. And it is largely because they are reaching out, bringing in sinners without calling them to repent of their sin, and they're using the worldly means and methods of the culture to bring in sinners.

But that's not that's not what we're called to do. We're called to be set apart from the culture. We're set to be called we're set apart from the world. We are not to look like the world, and yet the church, the visible church, seeks to look like the world in order to draw in the world.

It makes no sense whatsoever. And we largely see that in this realm of entertainment. You know, church has become entertainment. You know, if we just put on a good show, we'll get we'll get those people in the seats.

Eh, maybe then they'll get saved. Well, that's not what we're called to do as the church. Charles Spurgeon has a quote. It's a little bit long, but I'm going to read it here for you. And I found this quote a few months ago, and I've been so anxious to share it.

So I think you will see when you hear this quote, and we'll link to it at equippingeve .com as well, how relevant Spurgeon's words still are today. And he's condemning this idea of entertainment and just amusing the goats instead of feeding the sheep from the Word of God.

So Charles Spurgeon says, quote, "...and evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence that the most short-sighted can hardly fail to notice it during the past few years. It has developed at an abnormal rate, even for evil.

It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people with a view to winning them.".

Stop there. Doesn't that sound familiar? Oh, we need to, we need to draw them in. We need to, we need to win these people. Do church for the unchurched. Put on that show. Spurgeon goes on. He says, "...from speaking out as the Puritans did, the church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day.

Then she tolerated them and her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.". Sound familiar? My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the scriptures as a function of the church.

If it is a Christian work, why did not Christ speak of it? Mark 16 15, he says, "...go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.". Well, that is clear enough. So it would have been if he had added, "...and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.".

No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to him. Then again, Ephesians 4 tells us he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the work of the ministry.

Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr role. Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all his apostles.

What was the attitude of the church to the world? "...ye are the salt, not the sugar candy, something the world will spit out, not swallow.". Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back because of the searching nature of his teaching.

I do not hear him say, "...run after these people, Peter, and tell them that we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people.

Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it.". Be quick, Peter. We must get the people somehow. No, no. Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement.

Their message is, "...come out, keep out, keep clean out.". Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon. After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, "...Lord, grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.".

If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down. That is the only difference.

Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods. Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the undesired. It works havoc among young converts.

Let the careless and the scoffers who thank God because the church met them halfway speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent. Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God's link in the chain of the conversion stand up.

There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today's ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root.

The need is biblical doctrine so understood and felt that it sets men on fire.". In essence, Spurgeon here is doing something similar to what MacArthur has done in calling the church to repent. Lord, he says, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lord, clear the world from the church. Purify the church. And I dare say we will see a purification of the church with the way things are going in our society. Persecution brings purification. And so we can know that the Lord has great plans for his church even in times of persecution which are undoubtedly ahead of us.

We must stop this mission of amusement. Spurgeon says, it produces no converts. None. False ones. We are set apart. We are a chosen people set apart unto good works for the Lord. We are set apart to pursue righteousness and holiness.

We are to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. And yet and yet so many quote-unquote churches are seeking to to bring unbelievers in. They don't convert them with the true gospel. And so unbelievers are filling the visible church.

And as a result, the visible church today is sliding closer and closer to the Laodicean church that we see in Revelation 3. There's a church that is full of false converts, a church of unbelievers. Why?

Why are we catering church to the unbelievers? Why? And so what must we do individually to strengthen our own spiritual walk so that when we are together corporately, we may be a stronger church? Seek to be set apart.

Seek sanctification. Search the scriptures. That is the means by which we are pruned, is it not? We see that when Jesus talks about him being the true vine and us being the branches in John 15. And he speaks of how the Word prunes us.

God uses the Word, his scriptures, to prune the true believers so that we may bear more fruit. Search the scriptures. Be challenged by them. Be convicted by them. Be comforted by them. Obey them. Obey them because it is by keeping the commandments of the Word that we abide in Christ's love.

John 15 10, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. We don't obey as a means of attaining salvation, but if we have been saved, we've been given new desires.

We desire to serve Christ. We desire to worship him by our service and our walking in a manner worthy of the gospel by which we have been saved. And so we desire to obey his. We remain in him, but we cannot do that if we are not searching the scriptures.

If we do not have our nose buried in the Bible, studying it, reading it, treasuring it, and words. I mean, how many people do you know who can throw out the Christianese until it makes you nauseous, but their life demonstrates no fruit?

And so our words don't need to be dripping with Christian-sounding words, but our lives need to be dripping with his Word. We need to be bearing fruit. We can do that by searching the scriptures, and when we search the scriptures, we will be pruned.

It is a sovereign and supernatural work of God, this work of sanctification that in which he works to set us apart from the world, but at the same time, we must appropriate the means that he has given us by which we are sanctified.

That is the Word, that is prayer, that is fellowship with other believers. And so embrace this glorious gift of sanctification by which God grows us and molds us and transforms us to look more and more like Christ.

You know, one of the elders in my church often says that he wants that step into heaven to be a very short step because he desires to be transformed by the Word of God. And I just, I love that thought, and that is why we seek sound teaching and sound doctrine.

That is why we desire to study the Word, know how it is that he would have us to live, to welcome the process by which he makes us look more and more like his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who shed his blood.

So many churches today. So, so many churches today. They just want to cater to the world. They want to look like the world. I recently saw a newspaper article in the local paper here that was announcing a new campus of the local megachurch.

I think they already have six campuses around the area, and this is number seven, and it's not too far from where I live, and that's unfortunate. But I was reading the article, and the article said, quote, the church is known for its casual services with live music, teaching videos, and free coffee, and for its community outreach programs, end quote.

That's what this church is known for? This church is known for its free coffee and its live music, its teaching videos, teaching what? There's no mention of the Word of God. It doesn't say this church is known for its fidelity to Scripture and its faithfulness.

It doesn't say this church is known for its faithful proclamation of that gospel and calling sinners to repent and trust upon the Lord Jesus Christ. No, no, this church is known for its community outreach programs and free coffee.

Wow, that's great. That's great. Let me know how that goes for you when you stand before the Lord, and you say, but Lord, Lord, I served free coffee in your name. This church, this local church, needs to repent.

It's seeking to amuse the goats. It is not feeding the sheep. But Christian, don't take things like this. Don't take the Spurgeon quote and, and, and just point fingers at the seeker-sensitive churches.

Instead, ladies, I encourage you to take that reality that looks at the corporate church and instead, or in addition to, apply it to your own faith walk. Ask yourself, am I seeking sanctification and searching the Scriptures?

Am I abiding in Christ? In my own life, do I need to repent? Because it's very easy for us to just point the fingers and, you know, write the blog articles and get the discernment ministries in a tizzy because so and so false teacher was hanging out with so and so false teacher and taught this and that and the other.

And well, we expect that. And yes, we need to be discerning. Yes, we can call those people out, but we need to be discerning of ourselves and take a long hard look at ourselves and our desire to serve Christ.

And so, ladies, with that, until the next show, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped. Thanks for listening.